Warming
***WARMING BAD
Anthro
Best compilation of scientific data proves consensus – warming is real
and anthropogenic.
Cook et al 5/15 – Global Change Institute, University of Queensland, Australia (John, “Quantifying the Consensus on
Anthropogenic Global Warming in the Scientific Literature”, 5/15/13; < http://iopscience.iop.org/17489326/8/2/024024/pdf/1748-9326_8_2_024024.pdf>)//Beddow
An accurate perception of the degree of scientific consensus is an essential element to public
support for climate policy (Ding et al 2011 ). Communicating the scientific consensus also increases
people’s acceptance that climate change (CC) is happening (Lewandowsky et al 2012 ). Despite numerous
indicators of a consensus, there is wide public perception that climate scientists disagree over the fundamental cause of global
warming (GW; Leiserowitz et al 2012 , Pew 2012 ). In the most comprehensive analysis performed
to
date, we have extended the analysis of peer-reviewed climate papers in Oreskes ( 2004 ). We
examined a large sample of the scientific literature on global CC, published over a 21 year
period, in order to determine the level of scientific consensus that human activity is
very likely causing most of the current GW (anthropogenic global warming, or AGW). Surveys of climate scientists have found
strong agreement (97–98%) regarding AGW amongst publishing climate experts (Doran and Zimmerman 2009 , Anderegg et al
2010 ). Repeated surveys of scientists found that scientific agreement about AGW steadily
increased from 1996 to 2009 (Bray 2010 ). This is reflected in the increasingly definitive statements issued by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on the attribution of recent GW (Houghton et al 1996 , 2001 , Solomon et al 2007 ).
The peer-reviewed scientific literature provides a ground- level assessment of the degree of
consensus among publishing scientists. An analysis of abstracts published from 1993–2003 matching the search
‘global climate change’ found that none of 928 papers disagreed with the consensus position on AGW (Oreskes 2004 ). This is
consistent with an analysis of citation networks that found a consensus on AGW forming in the early 1990s (Shwed and Bearman
2010 ). Despite these independent indicators of a scientific consensus, the perception of the US public is that the scientific
community still disagrees over the fundamental cause of GW. From 1997 to 2007, public opinion polls have indicated around 60% of
the US public believes there is significant disagreement among scientists about whether GW was happening (Nisbet and Myers 2007
). Similarly, 57% of the US public either disagreed or were unaware that scientists agree that the earth is very likely warming due to
human activity (Pew 2012 ). Through analysis of climate-related papers published from 1991 to 2011,
this study provides the most comprehensive analysis of its kind to date in order to quantify and
evaluate the level and evolution of consensus over the last two decades.
Warming is real and the product of anthropogenic carbon emissions.
Cook 12 – solar physicist and founder of Skeptical Science (John, “The Human Fingerprint in Global Warming”, 8/31/12; <
http://www.skepticalscience.com/its-not-us-intermediate.htm>)//Beddow
In science, there's only one thing better than empirical measurements made in the real world and that is multiple independent measurements all pointing to the same result. There are
many lines of empirical evidence that all detect the human fingerprint in global
warming: The human fingerprint in atmospheric carbon dioxide That rising carbon dioxide is caused by
human CO2 emissions should be obvious when comparing CO2 levels to CO2 emissions:
Confirmation that rising carbon dioxide levels are due to human activity comes from analysing the types of carbon found in the air.
The carbon atom has several different isotopes (eg - different number of neutrons). Carbon 12 has 6 neutrons, carbon 13 has 7
neutrons. Plants have a lower C13/C12 ratio than in the atmosphere. If rising atmospheric CO2 comes fossil fuels, the C13/C12
should be falling. Indeed this is what is occuring (Ghosh 2003) and the trend correlates with the trend in global
emissions. Further confirmation comes by measuring oxygen levels in the atmosphere. When
fossil fuels are burned, the carbon in the fossil fuels are joined to oxygen, creating carbon
dioxide. As CO2 increases in the atmosphere, oxygen decreases. Observations show oxygen levels are falling at a rate
consistent with the burning of fossil fuels. Satellites measure infrared radiation as it escapes out
to space. A comparison between satellite data from 1970 to 1996 found that less energy is
escaping to space at the wavelengths that greenhouse gases absorb energy (Harries 2001). Thus
the paper found "direct experimental evidence for a significant increase in the
Earth's greenhouse effect". This result has been confirmed by more recent data from several different satellites
(Griggs 2004, Chen 2007). That
less heat is escaping out to space is confirmed by surface
measurements that find more infrared radiation returning to earth. Several studies have
found this is due to an increased greenhouse effect (Philipona 2004, Wang 2009). An analysis of high
resolution spectral data allows scientists to quantitatively attribute the increase in downward radiation to each of several greenhouse
gases (Evans 2006). The results lead the authors to conclude that "this experimental data should
effectively end the argument by skeptics that no experimental evidence exists for the connection
between greenhouse gas increases in the atmosphere and global warming." Another human
fingerprint can be found by looking at temperature trends in the different layers of the
atmosphere. Climate models predict that more carbon dioxide should cause warming in the
troposphere but cooling in the stratosphere. This is because the increased "blanketing" effect in
the troposphere holds in more heat, allowing less to reach the stratosphere. This is in contrast to
the expected effect if global warming was caused by the sun which would cause warming both in
the troposphere and stratosphere. What we observe from both satellites and weather
balloons is a cooling stratosphere and warming troposphere, consistent with
carbon dioxide warming: If an increased greenhouse effect was causing warming, we would
expect nights to warm faster than days. This is because the greenhouse effect operates day and
night. Conversely, if global warming was caused by the sun, we would expect the warming trend
to be greatest in daytime temperatures. What we observe is a decrease in cold nights greater
than the decrease in cold days, and an increase in warm nights greater than the increase in
warm days (Alexander 2006, Fan 2010). This is consistent with greenhouse warming.
Overwhelming qualified consensus proves warming human induced
Cook at al 13 (John 18 January 2013 Global Change Institute, University of Queensland, Australia Dana Nuccitelli
Skeptical Science, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia Sarah A Green School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, Australia
Mark Richardson Tetra Tech, Incorporated, McClellan, CA, USA Barbel Winkler Department of Chemistry, Michigan Technological
University, USA Rob Painting Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, UK Robert Way Department of Geography,
Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada Peter Jacobs Department of Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason
University, USA Andrew Skuce Salt Spring Consulting Ltd, Salt Spring Island, BC, Canada Quantifying the consensus on
anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/pdf/17489326_8_2_024024.pdf)
We analyze the evolution of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in
the peer-reviewed scientific literature, examining 11 944 climate abstracts from
1991–2011 matching the topics ‘global climate change’ or ‘global warming’. We find
that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7%
rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among
abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that
humans are causing global warming. In a second phase of this study, we invited
authors to rate their own papers. Compared to abstract ratings, a smaller percentage of
self-rated papers expressed no position on AGW (35.5%). Among self-rated papers
expressing a position on AGW, 97.2% endorsed the consensus. For both abstract
ratings and authors’ self-ratings, the percentage of endorsements among papers
expressing a position on AGW marginally increased over time. Our analysis indicates
that the number of papers rejecting the consensus on AGW is a vanishingly small
proportion of the published research
Most qualified and vast amount of experts agree warming is
anthropogenic
Cook at al 13 (John 18 January 2013 Global Change Institute, University of Queensland, Australia Dana Nuccitelli
Skeptical Science, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia Sarah A Green School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, Australia
Mark Richardson Tetra Tech, Incorporated, McClellan, CA, USA Barbel Winkler Department of Chemistry, Michigan Technological
University, USA Rob Painting Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, UK Robert Way Department of Geography,
Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada Peter Jacobs Department of Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason
University, USA Andrew Skuce Salt Spring Consulting Ltd, Salt Spring Island, BC, Canada Quantifying the consensus on
anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/pdf/17489326_8_2_024024.pdf)
The ISI search generated 12 465 papers. Eliminating papers that were not peerreviewed (186), not climate-related (288) or without an abstract (47) reduced the
analysis to 11 944 papers written by 29 083 authors and published in 1980
journals. To simplify the analysis, ratings were consolidated into three groups: endorsements
(including implicit and explicit; categories 1–3 in table 2 ), no position (category 4) and rejections
(including implicit and explicit; categories 5–7). We examined four metrics to quantify the level
of endorsement: (1) The percentage of endorsements/rejections/undecideds among all abstracts.
(2) The percentage of endorsements/rejections/undecideds among only those abstracts
expressing a position on AGW. (3) The percentage of scientists authoring endorsement/ rejection
abstracts among all scientists. (4) The same percentage among only those scientists who
expressed a position on AGW (table 3 ). 3.1. Endorsement percentages from abstract
ratings Among abstracts that expressed a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the
scientific consensus. Among scientists who expressed a position on AGW in their
abstract, 98.4% endorsed the consensus.
Real
Warming’s real – oceans prove.
Nuccitelli 4/24 – environmental scientist, MA in physics and climate researcher (Dana, “Why is Reuters puzzled by global
warming’s acceleration?”, 4/24/13; < http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-consensus-97-percent/2013/apr/24/reuters-puzzled-global-warming-acceleration>)//Beddow
The rate of heat building up on Earth over the past decade is equivalent to detonating about 4
Hiroshima atomic bombs per second. Take a moment to visualize 4 atomic bomb detonations happening every single
second. That's the global warming that we're frequently told isn't happening. There are periods when the ocean heats up more
quickly than the surface, and other periods when the surface heats up more quickly than the oceans. Right now we're in
a
period of fast ocean warming and overall, global warming is continuing at a very fast
pace. The confusion on this subject lies in the fact that only about 2 percent of global warming
is used in heating air, whereas about 90 percent of global warming goes into heating the oceans
(the rest heats ice and land masses). But humans live at the Earth's surface, and thus we tend to focus on
surface temperatures. Over the past 10–15 years, Earth's surface temperature has continued to
rise, but slowly. At the same time, the warming of the oceans – and the warming of the Earth as
a whole – has accelerated. This was the conclusion of a scientific paper I co-authored last year, in which our team
found more overall global warming (of the oceans, air, land, and ice combined) over the past 15
years than during the prior 15 years. Just recently, another paper published in the journal Geophysical Research
Letters found that the warming of the oceans since the turn of the century has been the most
sustained in the past 50 years. They also found that, consistent with my team's research, about 30% of overall
global warming has gone into the deep oceans below 700 meters due to changing wind patterns
and ocean currents. This accelerated deep ocean warming is also unprecedented in the
past 50 years. We often hear from the media that the (surface air) warming has slowed or
paused over the past 15 years. This isn't a puzzle; climate scientists are well aware of several contributing factors, as a
recent Reuters article – "Climate scientists struggle to explain warming slowdown" – eventually discussed. The accelerated
warming of the oceans is likely the main contributor. During years with La Niña events, more heat is
transferred to the oceans, and surface temperatures are relatively cool as a result. The opposite is true
during El Niño years. During the 1990s, there were more El Niño than La Niña events, which resulted in more surface air warming.
One of the strongest El Niño events of the century happened in 1998, which not coincidentally
was 15 years ago. When people say 'no warming in 15 years', they're cherry picking
the timeframe to begin in an abnormally hot year. It's like arguing that your car must have broken
down because it hasn't moved in the 15 seconds while you've been stopped at a red light. The argument selects a short
timeframe that's not representative of the whole. Since 2000, there has been a preponderance of
La Niña events, which has acted to temporarily bury more global warming in the oceans. A new
study published in Nature Climate Change found that by taking into account the short-term changes caused by factors like El Niño
and La Niña cycles, they could accurately forecast the slowed warming at the surface several years in advance. The paper concluded,
"Our results hence point at the key role of the ocean heat uptake in the recent warming slowdown." Reuters did not talk to the
authors of this study, or ask any other climate scientists about this surface warming slowdown that they're supposed to be puzzled
about. Actually that's not quite true. Just a week earlier, Reuters interviewed the lead author of that paper in an article with the
headline "Oceans may explain slowdown in climate change". The article noted, "Experts in France and Spain said
on Sunday that the oceans took up more warmth from the air around 2000. That would help explain the slowdown in surface
warming but would also suggest that the pause may be only temporary and brief." Reuters didn't connect the dots between these two
articles, telling us one week that oceans help explain the surface warming slowdown, and the next week claiming the slowdown is
puzzling climate scientists. However, these 'slowdowns' happen on a regular basis. You can find one every 5 to 10 years in the surface
temperature data, as illustrated in a graphic I created nicknamed 'The Escalator'. During periods with more La Niñas, surface
temperatures temporarily flatten out. But global warming does not. As long as humans continue to increase the
greenhouse effect by burning massive quantities of fossil fuels, the planet will continue to warm,
as is clear from the acceleration of global warming since 2000.
Warming now – the oceans have slowed it down but we’ll hit the
tipping point soon.
Doyle 4/7 – Environmental Correspondent for Reuters (Alister, “Oceans may explain slowdown in climate change: study”,
4/7/13; < http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/07/us-climate-oceans-idUSBRE93608420130407>)//Beddow
(Reuters) - Climate change could get worse quickly if huge amounts of extra heat absorbed
by the
oceans are released back into the air, scientists said after unveiling new research showing that oceans have
helped mitigate the effects of warming since 2000. Heat-trapping gases are being emitted into
the atmosphere faster than ever, and the 10 hottest years since records began have all taken
place since 1998. But the rate at which the earth's surface is heating up has slowed somewhat since 2000, causing scientists to
search for an explanation for the pause. Experts in France and Spain said on Sunday that the oceans took up more
warmth from the air around 2000. That would help explain the slowdown in surface warming
but would also suggest that the pause may be only temporary and brief. "Most of this excess
energy was absorbed in the top 700 meters (2,300 ft) of the ocean at the onset of the warming pause, 65 percent of it in the tropical
Pacific and Atlantic oceans," they wrote in the journal Nature Climate Change. Lead author Virginie Guemas of the Catalan Institute
of Climate Sciences in Barcelona said the hidden heat may return to the atmosphere in the next
decade, stoking warming again. "If it is only related to natural variability then the rate of
warming will increase soon," she told Reuters. Caroline Katsman of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological
Institute, an expert who was not involved in the latest study, said heat absorbed by the ocean will come back into the atmosphere if it
is part of an ocean cycle such as the "El Nino" warming and "La Nina" cooling events in the Pacific. She said the study broadly
confirmed earlier research by her institute but that it was unlikely to be the full explanation of the warming pause at the surface,
since it only applied to the onset of the slowdown around 2000.
Global warming’s real and accelerating – ocean data overwhelms
their defense.
Nuccitelli 3/25 - Environmental scientist, MA in physics and climate researcher (Dana, “New Research Confirms Global
Warming Has Accelerated” 3/25/13; < http://www.skepticalscience.com/new-research-confirms-global-warming-hasaccelerated.html>)//Beddow
A new study of ocean warming has just been published in Geophysical Research Letters by Balmaseda, Trenberth, and Källén (2013).
There are several important conclusions which can be drawn from this paper. Completely contrary to the popular
contrarian myth, global warming has accelerated, with more overall global warming in the
past 15 years than the prior 15 years. This is because about 90% of overall global
warming goes into heating the oceans, and the oceans have been warming
dramatically. As suspected, much of the 'missing heat' Kevin Trenberth previously talked about has
been found in the deep oceans. Consistent with the results of Nuccitelli et al. (2012), this study finds that 30% of the
ocean warming over the past decade has occurred in the deeper oceans below 700 meters, which
they note is unprecedented over at least the past half century. Some recent studies have concluded based on the slowed global
surface warming over the past decade that the sensitivity of the climate to the increased greenhouse effect
is somewhat lower than the IPCC best estimate. Those studies are fundamentally flawed because
they do not account for the warming of the deep oceans. The slowed surface air warming over
the past decade has lulled many people into a false and unwarranted sense of security.
Warming now
Lefeber 8/24/2012 (Rene DOCTOR CHAIR IN INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL
LAW THE THE UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM Polar Warming: An Opportune
Inconveniencehttp://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2151241
It is expected that some time this century the geographical North Pole will no
longer be covered with ice at the end of the Arctic Summer. This may already
happen for the first time at the end of this decade. The amount of sea ice at the end of
the Arctic Summer of 2011 (4.6 million km2) was more than 40% less than at the end of the
Arctic Summer of 1980 (7.8 million km2), which was almost 30% below the long-term average
of the period 1979-2010.2 Considerable parts of the land mass of Greenland, in particular the
coastal areas, and Antarctica, in particular the Antarctic Peninsula, are expected to
become ice free in summer time within the foreseeable future. The number of
icebergs will increase even though they will melt faster as a result of global
warming. Icebergs pose a threat for the sea routes in the Polar Regions which will
be used more intensively, but the seriousness of this threat will depend on the melting
velocity, the direction of winds and currents, and the use of detection methods that are more
advanced than at the time of the sinking of the RMS Titanic on 15 April 1912.
Temperatures rising now
Lefeber 8/24/2012 (Rene DOCTOR CHAIR IN INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL
LAW THE THE UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM Polar Warming: An Opportune
Inconveniencehttp://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2151241
The consequences of climate change for the Polar Regions are relatively big due to
the vulnerability of the ecosystems of these regions. Furthermore, the beneficial and
adverse consequences of climate change will manifest themselves sooner in the
Polar Regions due to the relatively fast increase of average temperatures in these
regions. This will not only create opportunities for new human activities in the
Polar Regions (see Section 1), but will also impact on existing activities in these
regions. The development of new activities as well as the continuation or discontinuation of
existing activities requires the implementation of adaptation measures. These measures concern
in particular the adjustment to changes in the polar cryosphere, in particular the loss of ice
cover: glaciers will melt faster; permafrost will thaw; the total surface covered by
sea ice, land ice and snow will decrease; parts of the remaining surface will
become ice free earlier in the season and for longer stretches of time; and the
remaining ice cover will become less thick (See Section 1). This will have a significant
impact on the indigenous peoples of the North Pole Region who have not significantly
contributed to climate change and lack the capacity to implement adaptation measures. The
indigenous peoples will have to appeal to the authorities of the states in which they reside.
International funding instruments are not available to finance the development of an adaptation
policy and the implementation of adaptation measures in the Polar Regions. This would
require access of indigenous peoples to the financial resources of the Adaptation
Fund of the Kyoto Protocol or the Green Climate Fund of the Climate Change
Convention that currently only envisages the financing of adaptation measures in
developing countries
Warming now – global temperature continues to increase
KOCH, BOWES, CLIFFROSS, and ZHANG 13 (MARGUERITE Aquatic Plant Ecology
Laboratory, Department of Biological Sciences, Florida Atlantic University, † ,GEORGE Department of Biology, University of
Florida, 220 Bartram Hall, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA, ‡ Department of Biology, University of North Florida, XING-HAI
Department of Biological Sciences, Florida Atlantic University, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton, FL 33431, USAClimate change and
ocean acidification effects on seagrasses and marine macroalgaehttp://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.13652486.2012.02791.x/full)
Along with the rise in atmospheric [CO 2 ] (Fig. 1), mean global surface
temperatures have increased by ~ 0.8 ° C over the last century (Levitus et al. ,
2001; Hansen et al. , 2006). Reconstructed temperature data from 35 million years ago
indicate that tropical to subtropical SST ranged from 35 to 40 ° C when atmo- spheric [CO 2 ] was
~ 1000 ppm (Kiehl, 2011), whereas modern day upper average temperature values are ~ 30 ° C.
By the end of this century temperatures are projected to increase by ~ 3 – 4 ° C
(Meehl et al. , 2007); thus, the average SST could feasibly increase to those during
the Eocene. Rising SST is already causing pop- ulation shifts in temperate and
tropical macroalgal species across various biogeographic regions (Wern- berg et
al. , 2011), including economically and ecologi- cally important species, such as
kelp at the edges of their range (Liu & Pang, 2010). However, higher [CO 2 ] may
ameliorate some of the negative effects of climate change on kelp through life
history adaptations (Role- da et al. , 2012). A study of over 20 000 herbarium records of
macroalgae collected over 70 years from the Pacific and Indian oceans around the Australian
coast shows that a poleward shift of several temperate spe- cies is already occurring (Wernberg et
al. , 2011). These changes are likely to continue, and therefore an under- standing of species
temperature thresholds and mech- anisms for adaptation and interaction with elevated [DIC]
would assist in predicting future community shifts
Consensus warming now just a matter of severity
Cooper et al 13 (P.J.RSchool of Agriculture, Policy and De velopment, University of
Reading, UK R. D. Statistical Services Centre, University of Reading, UK M. Noguer and J. M.
Gathenya Walker Institute for Climate System R esearch, University of Reading, UK Climate
Change Adaptation Strategies in Sub-Saharan Africa: Foundations for the
Futurehttp://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/42002/InTechClimate_change_adaptation_strategies_in_sub_saharan_africa_foundations_for_the_future.
pdf
To try to account for these uncertainties the IPCC, in its latest report [7], assessed results from a
range of Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Models (AOGCM) and provided climate
projections for the end of the 21 st Century. Projections from all these models show
substantial agreement, but as might be expe cted, there are still considerable
differences between the various models. For example, Tabl e 1 provides information for
East Africa generated from a set of 21 AOGCMs for one of the SRES emission scenarios group
(the A1B scenario) focusing on the change in climat e between the 1980 to 1999 period in the
20th century integrations and the 2080 to 2090 peri od of A1B. Table 1 shows the minimum,
maximum, median (50%), and 25 and 75% qu artile values among the 21 models, for
temperature (°C) and precipitation (%) change. Table 1. Projected climate change in East Africa
by the end of the 21st century [7] With regard to temperature there is a clear
consensus across all models that temperatures will increase, although the predic
ted range is quite large and, agriculturally speaking, very important. A rise in
mean temperatures of over 4°C by 2100 would have very different and much more
dramatic impacts than an increase of less than 2°C. The clear consensus that we
are living in a warming world has been widely confirmed through trend analyses
of long- term historical daily temperature records both worldwide and in SSA. This
is useful in that Climate Change Adaptation Strategies in Su b-Saharan Africa: Foundations for
the Future 331 it provides a clear framework within which resear ch into adaptation strategies to
deal with increasing temperatures can be framed with some degree of confidence
AT: Cooling
No cooling – prefer long-term trends.
Nuccitelli 1/10 - Environmental scientist, MA in physics and climate researcher (Dana, “Did Global Warming Stop in 1998,
1995, 2002, 2007, 2010?”, 1/10/13; < http://skepticalscience.com/global-cooling-january-2007-to-january-2008basic.htm>)//Beddow
A common claim amongst climate "skeptics" is that the Earth has been cooling recently. 1998 was
the first year claimed by "skeptics" for "Global Cooling". Then 1995 followed by 2002. 'Skeptics' have also emphasized the year 20072008 and most recently the last half of 2010. NASA and climate scientists throughout the world have said, however, that the years
starting since 1998 have been the hottest in all recorded temperature history. Do these claims sound confusing and contradictory?
Has the Earth been cooling, lately? To find out whether there is actually a "cooling trend," it is important to consider all of these
claims as a whole, since they follow the same pattern. In making these claims, 'skeptics' cherrypick short
periods of time, usually about 10 years or less. 'Skeptics' also take selected areas of the world
where cold records for the recent past are being set while ignoring other areas where all time
heat records are being set. The temperature chart below is based on information acquired from NASA heat sensing
satellites. It covers a 30 year period from January 1979 to November 2010. The red curve indicates the average temperature
throughout the entire Earth. The red line represents the average temperature. The top of the curves are warmer years caused by El
Niño; a weather phenomenon where the Pacific Ocean gives out heat thus warming the Earth. The bottoms of the curves are usually
La Niña years which cool the Earth. Volcanic eruptions, like Mount Pinatubo in 1991 will also cool the Earth over short timeframes
of 1-2 years. Below is the same temperature chart, showing how 'skeptics' manipulate the data to give the impression of 'Global
Cooling'. First they choose the warmest most recent year they can find. Then, in this case, they exclude 20 years of previous
temperature records. Next they draw a line from the warmest year (the high peak) to the lowest La Niña they can find. In doing this
they falsely give the impression that an ordinary La Niña is actually a cooling trend. The chart above clearly shows that temperatures
have gone up. When temperatures for the warm El Niño years (pink lines) during 1980-1995 are compared to 1998-2010, there is a
sudden increase of at least 0.2o Centigrade (0.36o Fahrenheit). Temperatures also jumped up by about 0.15oC (0.27oF) between the
cool La Niña years (Green lines) of 1979-1989 and those of 1996-2008 (the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 lowered the Earth's
temperatures in the midst of an El Niño cycle). The overall trend from 1979 through November 2010
(Brown line) shows an unmistakable rise. This is particularly clear when we
statistically remove the short-term influences from the temperature record, as Kevin C
did here: Did global warming stop in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010? Link to this page The skeptic argument... Global warming
stopped in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010, ???? "January 2008 capped a 12 month period of global temperature drops on all of the
major well respected indicators. HadCRUT, RSS, UAH, and GISS global temperature sets all show sharp drops in the last year"
(source: Watts Up With That). What the science says... Select a level... Basic Intermediate Global temperatures continue to rise
steadily beneath the short-term noise. A common claim amongst climate "skeptics" is that the Earth has
been cooling recently. 1998 was the first year claimed by "skeptics" for "Global Cooling". Then 1995 followed by 2002.
'Skeptics' have also emphasized the year 2007-2008 and most recently the last half of 2010. NASA and climate scientists throughout
the world have said, however, that the years starting since 1998 have been the hottest in all recorded temperature history. Do these
claims sound confusing and contradictory? Has the Earth been cooling, lately? To find out whether there is actually a "cooling
trend," it is important to consider all of these claims as a whole, since they follow the same pattern. In making these claims,
'skeptics' cherrypick short periods of time, usually about 10 years or less. 'Skeptics' also take
selected areas of the world where cold records for the recent past are being set while ignoring
other areas where all time heat records are being set. The temperature chart below is based on information
acquired from NASA heat sensing satellites. It covers a 30 year period from January 1979 to November 2010. The red curve indicates
the average temperature throughout the entire Earth. The red line represents the average temperature. The top of the curves are
warmer years caused by El Niño; a weather phenomenon where the Pacific Ocean gives out heat thus warming the Earth. The
bottoms of the curves are usually La Niña years which cool the Earth. Volcanic eruptions, like Mount Pinatubo in 1991 will also cool
the Earth over short timeframes of 1-2 years. Figure 1: University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH) temperature chart from January
1979 to November 2010. This chart is shown with no trend lines so the viewer may make his own judgment. Below is the same
temperature chart, showing how 'skeptics' manipulate the data to give the impression of 'Global Cooling'. First they choose the
warmest most recent year they can find. Then, in this case, they exclude 20 years of previous temperature records. Next they draw a
line from the warmest year (the high peak) to the lowest La Niña they can find. In doing this they falsely give the
impression that an ordinary La Niña is actually a cooling trend. Figure 2: Representation of how 'skeptics'
distort the temperature chart. Even though the chart clearly indicates increased warming,
'skeptics' take small portions of out of context to claim the opposite. What do the past 30
years of temperature data really show? Below is the answer. Figure 3: Trend lines showing the sudden jump in temperatures in the
1995 La Niña (Green lines) and the 1998 (Pink lines) El Niño events. Brown line indicates overall increase in temperatures. The
chart above clearly shows that temperatures have gone up. When temperatures for the warm El Niño years (pink lines) during 19801995 are compared to 1998-2010, there is a sudden increase of at least 0.2o Centigrade (0.36o Fahrenheit). Temperatures also
jumped up by about 0.15oC (0.27oF) between the cool La Niña years (Green lines) of 1979-1989 and those of 1996-2008 (the
eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 lowered the Earth's temperatures in the midst of an El Niño cycle). The overall trend from 1979
through November 2010 (Brown line) shows an unmistakable rise. This is particularly clear when we statistically
remove the short-term influences from the temperature record, as Kevin C did here: In spite of
these facts, 'skeptics' simply keep changing their dates for 'Global Cooling', constantly confusing
short-term noise and long-term trends (Figure 4).
AT: Ice Age
No Ice Age now – empirics.
Blackburn 10 – Environmental Policy and BSc in Environmental Biology, climate scientist (Anne-Marie, “How we know an
ice age isn’t just around the corner”, 9/1/10; < http://www.skepticalscience.com/How-we-know-an-ice-age-isnt-just-around-thecorner.html>)//Beddow
According to ice cores from Antarctica, the past 400,000 years have been dominated by glacials, also known as ice ages, that last
about 100,000 years. These glacials have been punctuated by interglacials, short warm periods which typically last 11,500 years.
Figure 1 below shows how temperatures in Antarctica changed over this period. Because our current interglacial (the
Holocene) has already lasted approximately 12,000 years, it has led some to claim that a new ice
age is imminent. Is this a valid claim? To answer this question, it is necessary to understand what has caused the shifts
between ice ages and interglacials during this period. The cycle appears to be a response to changes in the
Earth’s orbit and tilt, which affect the amount of summer sunlight reaching the northern hemisphere. When this
amount declines, the rate of summer melt declines and the ice sheets begin to grow. In turn, this
increases the amount of sunlight reflected back into space, increasing (or amplifying) the cooling trend. Eventually a new ice age
emerges and lasts for about 100,000 years. So what are today’s conditions like? Changes in both the orbit and tilt of
the Earth do indeed indicate that the Earth should be cooling. However, two reasons
explain why an ice age is unlikely: These two factors, orbit and tilt, are weak and
are not acting within the same timescale – they are out of phase by about 10,000
years. This means that their combined effect would probably be too weak to trigger
an ice age.
You have to go back 430,000 years to find an interglacial with similar conditions, and this interglacial lasted
about 30,000 years. The
warming effect from CO2 and other greenhouse gases is greater than the
cooling effect expected from natural factors. Without human interference, the Earth’s orbit and tilt, a slight decline
in solar output since the 1950s and volcanic activity would have led to global cooling. Yet global temperatures are
definitely on the rise . It can therefore be concluded that with CO2 concentrations
set to continue to rise, a return to ice age conditions seems very unlikely. Instead,
temperatures are increasing and this increase may come at a considerable cost
with few or no benefits.
Watts Indict
Anthony Watts is a college dropout.
Sourcewatch 11 – (6/30/11; < http://sourcewatch.org/images/4/4d/Anthony_Watts.pdf>)//Beddow
Thanks I am now in receipt of a letter from Purdue signed by the Registrar. However, the letter simply states that WILLARD
ANTHONY WATTS attended Purdue University from August 28, 1975 to May 8, 1982. There is
no record of any degree qualification attained. May I then assume that no qualification was
obtained by this individual from PU?
Ocean Acidification
Emissions causes ocean acidification – extinction.
Romm 12 – physicist and climate expert, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Senior Fellow at
the Center for American Progress (Joseph J., “Science: Ocean Acidifying so fast that it threatens humanity’s ability to feed itself”,
3/2/12; < http://earthlawcenter.org/news/headline/science-ocean-acidifying-so-fast-it-threatens-humanitys-ability-to-feeditself/>)//Beddow
The world’s oceans may be turning acidic faster today from human carbon emissions than they
did during four major extinctions in the last 300 million years, when natural pulses of carbon
sent global temperatures soaring, says a new study in Science. The study is the first of its kind to survey the geologic
record for evidence of ocean acidification over this vast time period. “What we’re doing today really stands out,” said lead author
Bärbel Hönisch, a paleoceanographer at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “We know that life during past
ocean acidification events was not wiped out—new species evolved to replace those that died off. But if industrial carbon
emissions continue at the current pace, we may lose organisms we care about—coral reefs,
oysters, salmon.” James Zachos, a paleoceanographer at University of California, Santa Cruz, with a core of sediment from
some 56 million years ago, when the oceans underwent acidification that could be an analog to ocean changes today. That’s the news
release from a major 21-author Science paper, “The Geological Record of Ocean Acidification” (subs. req’d). We knew from a 2010
Nature Geoscience study that the oceans are now acidifying 10 times faster today than 55 million years
ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred. But this study looked back over 300 million and found
that “the unprecedented rapidity of CO2 release currently taking place” has put marine life at risk
in a frighteningly unique way: … the current rate of (mainly fossil fuel) CO2 release
stands out as capable of driving a combination and magnitude of ocean geochemical
changes potentially unparalleled in at least the last ~300 My of Earth history,
raising the possibility that we are entering an unknown territory of marine
ecosystem change. That is to say, it’s not just that acidifying oceans spell marine biological meltdown “by end of century”
as a 2010 Geological Society study put it. We are also warming the ocean and decreasing dissolved oxygen concentration. That
is a recipe for mass extinction. A 2009 Nature Geoscience study found that ocean dead
zones “devoid of fish and seafood” are poised to expand and “remain for thousands of years. “ And
remember, we just learned from a 2012 new Nature Climate Change study that carbon dioxide is “driving fish crazy” and threatening
their survival. Here’s more on the new study: The oceans act like a sponge to draw down excess carbon dioxide from the air; the gas
reacts with seawater to form carbonic acid, which over time is neutralized by fossil carbonate shells on the seafloor. But if CO2 goes
into the oceans too quickly, it can deplete the carbonate ions that corals, mollusks and some plankton need for reef and shellbuilding. That is what is happening now. In a review of hundreds of paleoceanographic studies, a team of researchers from five
countries found evidence for only one period in the last 300 million years when the oceans changed even remotely as fast as today:
the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM, some 56 million years ago. In the early 1990s, scientists extracting sediments
from the seafloor off Antarctica found a layer of mud from this period wedged between thick deposits of white plankton fossils. In a
span of about 5,000 years, they estimated, a mysterious surge of carbon doubled atmospheric concentrations, pushed average global
temperatures up by about 6 degrees C, and dramatically changed the ecological landscape. The result: carbonate plankton shells
littering the seafloor dissolved, leaving the brown layer of mud. As many as half of all species of benthic foraminifers, a group of
single-celled organisms that live at the ocean bottom, went extinct, suggesting that organisms higher in the food chain may have also
disappeared, said study co-author Ellen Thomas, a paleoceanographer at Yale University who was on that pivotal Antarctic cruise.
“It’s really unusual that you lose more than 5 to 10 percent of species over less than 20,000 years,” she said. “It’s usually on the order
of a few percent over a million years.” During this time, scientists estimate, ocean pH—a measure of acidity–may have fallen as
much as 0.45 units. (As pH falls, acidity rises.) In the last hundred years, atmospheric CO2 has risen about 30 percent, to 393 parts
per million, and ocean pH has fallen by 0.1 unit, to 8.1–an acidification rate at least 10 times faster than 56 million years ago, says
Hönisch. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that pH may fall another 0.3 units by the end of the century,to
7.8, raising the possibility that we may soon see ocean changes similar to those observed during the PETM. More catastrophic
events have shaken earth before, but perhaps not as quickly. The study finds two other times of
potential ocean acidification: the extinctions triggered by massive volcanism at the end of the
Permian and Triassic eras, about 252 million and 201 million years ago respectively. But the authors
caution that the timing and chemical changes of these events is less certain. Because most ocean sediments older than 180 million
years have been recycled back into the deep earth, scientists have fewer records to work with. During the end of the Permian, about
252 million years ago, massive volcanic eruptions in present-day Russia led to a rise in atmospheric carbon, and the extinction of 96
percent of marine life. Scientists have found evidence for ocean dead zones and the survival of organisms able to withstand
carbonate-poor seawater and high blood-carbon levels, but so far they have been unable to reconstruct changes in ocean pH or
carbonate. At the end of the Triassic, about 201 million years ago, a second burst of mass volcanism doubled atmospheric carbon.
Coral reefs collapsed and many sea creatures vanished. Noting that tropical species fared the worst, some scientists question if global
warming rather than ocean acidification was the main killer at this time. The effects of ocean acidification today are overshadowed
for now by other problems, ranging from sewage pollution and hotter summer temperatures that threaten corals with disease and
bleaching. However, scientists trying to isolate the effects of acidic water in the lab have shown that lower pH levels can harm a
range of marine life, from reef and shell-building organisms to the tiny snails favored by salmon. In a recent study, scientists from
Stony Brook University found that the larvae of bay scallops and hard clams grow best at pre-industrial pH levels, while their shells
corrode at the levels projected for 2100. Off the U.S. Pacific Northwest, the death of oyster larvae has recently been linked to the
upwelling of acidic water there. In parts of the ocean acidified by underwater volcanoes venting carbon dioxide, scientists have seen
alarming signs of what the oceans could be like by 2100. In a 2011 study of coral reefs off Papua New Guinea, scientists writing in the
journal Nature Climate Change found that when pH dropped to 7.8, reef diversity declined by as much as 40 percent. Other studies
have found that clownfish larvae raised in the lab lose their ability to sniff out predators and find their way home when pH drops
below 7.8. “It’s not a problem that can be quickly reversed,” said Christopher Langdon, a biological oceanographer at the University
of Miami who co-authored the study on Papua New Guinea reefs. “Once a species goes extinct it’s gone forever.
We’re playing a very dangerous game.”
Ocean acidification destroys marine biodiversity
Hendriks et. Al 10 (I.E. Hendriks Department of Global Change Research. IMEDEA, January 2010 "Vulnerability of marine biodiversity
to ocean acidification: A meta-analysis”
http://www.sciencedirect.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/science/article/pii/S027277140900537X
The ocean has captured between 28 and 34% of the anthropogenic carbon dioxide emitted to the
atmosphere between 1980 and 1994 (Millero, 2007 and Sabine et al., 2004). The ensuing increase in ocean CO2 concentration
(Millero, 2007 and Sabine et al., 2004) has lead to a reduction of about 0.1 pH units in ocean surface waters
compared to pre-industrial times (Caldeira and Wickett, 2003) and a further decline by 0.3–0.5 pH units is expected by 2100
(Caldeira and Wickett, 2005). Ocean acidification has been proposed to pose a major threat for marine
organisms, particularly shell-forming and calcifying organisms (Kleypas et al., 1999 and Riebesell et al., 2000).¶
Warnings that ocean acidification is a major threat to marine biodiversity (Kleypas et al., 1999, Orr et al., 2005, Raven, 2005, Sponberg, 2007
and Zondervan et al., 2001) are largely based on the analysis of predicted changes in ocean chemical fields (Caldeira and Wickett, 2005, IPCC,
2007 and Raven, 2005), with limited experimental support (Doney et al., 2009).
These inferences have prompted substantial
investments in research funds to support major increases in research efforts, which are providing
evidence that the responses of organisms to ocean acidification may be more complex than previously
thought (Fabry, 2008 and Iglesias-Rodriguez et al., 2008). There is a need to test the generality and magnitude of the predicted negative
impact of ocean acidification on marine biota. Here we evaluate the vulnerability of marine biota to ocean acidification through a meta-analysis
of available experimental assessments of the impacts of acidification on a range of functions across marine organisms.
Loss of biodiversity causes extinction
Cardinale 12 (Bradley J. Cardinale Ph.D., University of Maryland, 2002 “Biodiversity loss and its impact on humanity”
http://www.nature.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/nature/journal/v486/n7401/pdf/nature11148.pdf)
The significance of biodiversity for human wellbeing was recognized¶ 20 years ago with the formation of the
Convention on Biological¶ Diversity—an intergovernmental agreement among 193 countries to¶ support the conservation of biological
diversity, the sustainable use of¶ its components, and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits. Despite¶ this agreement, evidence gathered in
2010 indicated that biodiversity¶ loss at the global scale was continuing, often at increasing rates98. This¶
observation stimulated a
set of new targets for 2020 (the Aichi targets)¶ and, in parallel, governments have been negotiating the establishment of¶ a new
assessment body, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform¶ on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The IPBES will be¶ charged
with conducting regional, global and thematic assessments of¶ biodiversity and ecosystem services, and will depend on the international
scientific community to assess trends and evaluate risks associated with alternative patterns of development and changes in land use99¶ .¶
Significant gaps in both the science and policy need attention if the¶ Aichi targets are to be met, and if future ecosystems are to provide the¶
range of services required to support more people sustainably99. We¶
have reported the scientific consensus that has
emerged over 20 years¶ of biodiversity research, to help orient the next generation of research on¶ the
links between biodiversity and the benefits ecosystems provide to¶ humanity. One of the greatest challenges
now is to use what we have¶ learned to develop predictive models that are founded on empirically¶ quantified ecological mechanisms; that
forecast changes in ecosystem¶ services at scales that are policy-relevant; and that link to social, economic¶ and political systems. Without
an understanding of the fundamental¶ ecological processes that link biodiversity, ecosystem functions
and¶ services, attempts to forecast the societal consequences of diversity loss, ¶ and to meet policy
objectives, are likely to fail100. But with that fundamental understanding in hand, we may yet bring
the modern era of¶ biodiversity loss to a safe end for humanity
Ocean acidification on the brink now
Doney 09 Scott C. Doney Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution “Ocean
Acidification:¶ The Other CO2¶ Problem”
http://www.annualreviews.org.proxy.lib.umich.edu/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.marine.010908.163834)
Over the past 250 years, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels increased by nearly 40%, from ¶
preindustrial levels of approximately 280 ppmv (parts per million volume) to nearly 384 ppmv in¶ 2007 (Solomon
et al. 2007). This rate of increase, driven by human fossil fuel combustion and¶ deforestation, is at least an order of magnitude faster than has
occurred for millions of years (Doney¶ & Schimel 2007), and the current concentration is higher than experienced on Earth for at least¶ the past
800,000 years (Luthi et al. 2008). Rising
atmospheric CO ¨¶ 2 is tempered by oceanic uptake,¶ which accounts for
nearly a third of anthropogenic carbon added to the atmosphere (Sabine &¶ Feely 2007, Sabine et al. 2004), and
without which atmospheric CO2¶ would be approximately 450¶ ppmv today, a level of CO2 that would have led to even greater climate change
than witnessed¶ today. Ocean CO2¶ uptake, however, is not benign; it causes pH reductions and alterations in¶ fundamental chemical balances
that together are commonly referred to as ocean acidification.¶
Because climate change and ocean acidification are
both caused by increasing atmospheric CO2,¶ acidification is commonly referred to as the “other CO2¶
problem” (Henderson 2006, Turley 2005).¶ Ocean acidification is a predictable consequence of rising atmospheric CO2 and does not suffer¶
from uncertainties associated with climate change forecasts. Absorption of anthropogenic CO2,¶ reduced pH, and lower
calcium carbonate (CaCO3) saturation in surface waters, where the bulk¶ of oceanic production
occurs, are well verified from models, hydrographic surveys, and time series¶ data (Caldeira & Wickett 2003,
2005; Feely et al. 2004, 2008; Orr et al. 2005; Solomon et al.¶ 2007). At the Hawaii Ocean Time-Series (HOT) station ALOHA the growth rates of
surface¶ water pCO2 and atmospheric CO2 agree well (Takahashi et al. 2006) (Figure 1), indicating uptake¶ of anthropogenic CO2 as the major
cause for long-term increases in dissolved inorganic carbon¶ (DIC) and decreases in CaCO3 saturation state. Correspondingly, since the 1980s
average pH¶ measurements at HOT, the Bermuda Atlantic Time-Series Study, and European Station for TimeSeries in the Ocean in the eastern
Atlantic have decreased approximately 0.02 units per decade¶ (Solomon et al. 2007). Since preindustrial times, the average ocean surface water
pH has fallen by¶ approximately 0.1 units, from approximately 8.21 to 8.10 (Royal Society 2005), and is expected¶ to decrease a further 0.3–0.4
pH units (Orr et al. 2005) if atmospheric CO2 concentrations reach¶ 800 ppmv [the projected end-of-century concentration according to the
Intergovernmental Panel¶ on Climate Change (IPCC) business-as-usual emission scenario].¶
Fossil fuel combustion and
agriculture also produce increased atmospheric inputs of dissociation products of strong acids (HNO3
and H2¶ SO4) and bases (NH3) to the coastal and open ocean.¶ These inputs are particularly important
close to major source regions, primarily in the northern hemisphere, and cause decreases in surface
seawater alkalinity, pH, and DIC (Doney et al.¶ 2007). On a global scale, these anthropogenic inputs (0.8 Tmol/yr
reactive sulfur and 2.7 Tmol/yr¶ reactive nitrogen) contribute only a small fraction of the acidification
caused by anthropogenic¶ CO2, but they are more concentrated in coastal waters where the
ecosystem responses to ocean¶ acidification could be more serious for humankind.
Ocean acidification causes biodiversity loss
Bienkowski 13 (Brian Bienkowski is a Senior editor, staff writer at Environmental Health News “U.S. Effort on Ocean Acidification Needs
Focus on Human Impacts”
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=us-effort-on-ocean-acidification-needs-focus-on-human-impacts)
A federal plan to tackle ocean acidification must focus more on how the changes will affect people
and the economy, according to a review of the effort by a panel of the National Research Council.¶
"Social issues clearly can't drive everything but when it's possible they should," said George Somero, chair of the committee that wrote the
report and associate director at Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station. "If you're setting up a monitoring station, it should be where
there's a shellfish industry, for example."¶
Acidification is one of the larger problems associated with greenhouse
gas emissions, as oceans serve as a giant sponge for carbon dioxide. When carbon dioxide is dissolved
in seawater, water chemistry changes and acidity increases. More acidic seawater can hurt ocean
creatures, especially corals and shellfish, because it prevents them from properly developing their
skeletons and shells. Shrinking coral reefs could dent eco-tourism revenue in some coastal areas. It
also could trigger a decline in fish populations dependent on those reefs.¶ Decreasing shellfish
populations would harm the entire ocean food chain, researchers say, particularly affecting people who get their protein
or paycheck from the sea. Globally, fish represent about 6 percent of the protein people eat. ¶ The
acidification blueprint was drafted by nine federal agencies in March 2012. It establishes guidelines
for federal research, monitoring and mitigation of ocean acidification. In reviewing the plan, the research council,
which advises the government on science policy, recommended that federal research and action be focused on issues with human and
economic consequences.
Co2 causes ocean acidification killing all ocean species
McKie 11 (Robin McKie is science and technology editor for the Observer “Ocean acidification is latest
manifestation of global warming”, 28 May 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/29/global-warming-threat-to-oceans)
That discovery is highly revealing, and worrying, because Vulcano's afflictions are being repeated today
on a global scale, in every ocean on the planet – not from volcanic sources but from the industrial
plants, power stations, cars and planes that are pumping out growing amounts of carbon dioxide and
which are making our seas increasingly acidic. Millions of marine species are now threatened with
extinction; fisheries face eradication; while reefs that protect coastal areas are starting to erode.¶
Ocean acidification is now one of the most worrying threats to the planet, say marine biologists. "Just
as Vulcano is pumping carbon dioxide into the waters around it, humanity is pouring more and more
carbon dioxide into the atmosphere," Dr Jason Hall-Spencer, a marine biologist at Plymouth University,
told a conference on the island last week.¶ "Some of the billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide we emit
each year lingers in the atmosphere and causes it to heat up, driving global warming. But about 30%
of that gas is absorbed by the oceans where it turns to carbonic acid. It is beginning to kill off coral
reefs and shellfish beds and threaten stocks of fish. Very little can live in water that gets too acidic."¶
Hence science's renewed interest in Vulcano. Its carbon dioxide springs – which bubble up like burst
water mains below the shallow seabed – provide researchers with a natural laboratory for testing the
global impact of ocean acidification. "These vents and the carbonic acid they generate tell us a great
deal about how carbon dioxide is going to affect the oceans and marine life this century," said HallSpencer. "And we should be worried. This problem is a train coming straight at us."¶ Scientists estimate
that oceans absorb around a million tonnes of carbon dioxide every hour and our seas are 30% more
acidic than they were last century. This increased acidity plays havoc with levels of calcium carbonate,
which forms the shells and skeletons of many sea creatures, and also disrupts reproductive activity.¶
Among the warning signs recently noted have been the failures of commercial oyster and other shellfish
beds on the Pacific coasts of the US and Canada. In addition, coral reefs – already bleached by rising
global temperatures – have suffered calamitous disintegration in many regions. And at the poles and
high latitudes, where the impact of ocean acidification is particularly serious, tiny shellfish called
pteropods – the basic foodstuff of fish, whales and seabirds in those regions – have suffered noticeable
drops in numbers. In each case, ocean acidification is thought to be involved.¶ The problem was recently
highlighted by the head of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Dr Jane Lubchenco.
She described ocean acidification as global warming's "equally evil twin". It is a powerful comparison,
though it is clear that of the two, the crisis facing our seas has received far less attention. The last UN
climate assessment report was more than 400 pages long but had only two pages on ocean acidification
– mainly because studies of the phenomenon are less well advanced than meteorological and
atmospheric research in general.¶ The workshop, held last week on Vulcano, is part of the campaign to
understand the likely impact of ocean acidification. Dozens of young oceanographers, geologists and
ecologists gathered for the meeting run by the Mediterranean Sea Acidification (MedSeA) programme.
Dr Maoz Fine, of Bar-Ilan University in Israel, reported work on coral reef organisms that had been
exposed to waters of different levels of acidity, temperature and light in his laboratory.¶ "We found that
species of coral reef respond differently to rising carbon dioxide levels," he said. "Bigger corals suffer
but survive while smaller, branching varieties become less able to fight disease and die off. That sort
of thing just makes it even more difficult to predict exactly what is going to happen to our oceans."¶ Few
scientists doubt that the impact on reefs will be anything short of devastating, however. The Caribbean
has already lost about 80% of its coral reefs to bleaching caused by rising temperatures and by
overfishing which removes species that normally aid coral growth. Acidification threatens to do the
same for the rest of the world's coral reefs.¶ "By the middle of the century there will probably be only a
few pockets – in the North Sea and the Pacific. Millions of species of fish, shellfish and microorganisms will be wiped out," said Fine.¶ Acidification has affected the oceans in the past. However,
these prehistoric events occurred at a far slower rate, said Dr Jerry Blackford of Plymouth Marine
Laboratory. "The waters of the world take around 500 years to circulate the globe," he said. "If carbon
dioxide was rising slowly, in terms of thousands of years, natural factors could then compensate.
Sediments could buffer the carbonic acid, for example."¶ But levels of carbon dioxide are rising much
faster today. By the end of the century, surface seawater will be 150% more acidic than it was in 1800.
"There is simply not enough time for buffering to come into effect and lessen the impact," said
Blackford. "The result will be significant acid build-up in the upper parts of the oceans which, of course,
are the parts that are of greatest importance to humans."¶
Ocean acidification threatens fish population causing extinction
Kroh 11 (Kiley Kroh “The Great Oyster Crash and Why Ocean Acidification Is “A Ticking Time Bomb” for
Both Marine Life and Humanity”, Sep 14, 2011
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/09/14/318681/the-great-oyster-crash-and-why-oceanacidification-is-a-ticking-time-bomb-for-both-marine-life-and-humanity/)
As Scigliano explains, “the oceans are the world’s great carbon sink, holding about 50 times as much of
the element as the air.” As carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels and other industrial processes rise,
so too does the level of acidity in the oceans. Once it reaches a certain threshold, ocean acidification
becomes lethal to many species, including clams and oysters, which become unable to build the shells or
skeletons they need to survive.¶ The rise in acidity and subsequent oyster crash took a significant toll on
coastal communities – from 2005 to 2009, West Coast production dropped from 93 million pounds to 73
million pounds, representing $11 million in lost sales. This case is among the earliest examples of ocean
acidification imposing a direct effect on the economy. Unfortunately, we can safely say it is far from the
last.¶ By installing new technology to carefully monitor ocean temperatures and chemistry, some west
coast hatcheries were able to rebuild, but their bounty might be short-lived. While temporary mitigation
measures have been successful, they are just that – temporary. Scientists from Mexico, Canada, and the
United States found that upwellings of acidic water like those that wiped out the Pacific hatcheries
operate on a delay of several decades – the water rising from the deep ocean today holds CO2 absorbed
approximately 30 to 50 years ago. In the last 50 years, the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have risen 25
percent – a terrifying presage for the health of the world’s oceans. Burke Hales, one of the scientists
involved in the research, explains:¶ “We’ve mailed a package to ourselves … and it’s hard to call off
delivery.Ӧ Benoit Eudeline, chief hatchery scientist for Taylor Shellfish Farms, the largest US producer of
farmed shellfish, likened the current situation to “sitting on a ticking time bomb.”¶ The threat of ocean
acidification spreads far beyond the oyster industry and carries potentially catastrophic implications
for the entire food chain. Basically any fish that might find its way onto your dinner plate relies on krill,
plankton, snails or other shelled creatures that stand to be hit earliest and hardest by acidification. The
chart below, for instance, shows that about half the annual catch by value in the U.S. comes from
mollusks and crustaceans and another 24 percent are animals that directly feed upon these calcifiers –
representing billions of dollars and millions of jobs at stake. (See chart above.)¶ The damaging effects
of ocean acidification will likely be felt even more acutely beyond American shores. A recent study
found that mollusk fisheries will decline most in poor countries that are already struggling with protein
deficiencies. In Madagascar, one of the countries the study predicted would be hit hardest, fishing
provides 7 percent of the GDP and generates nearly half a million jobs – and local officials confirm the
effects of both climate change and ocean acidification are already being felt.¶ Though advancements in
science and fisheries management can help provisionally assuage the blow of ocean acidification,
ultimately, only significant measures to reduce carbon emissions in the atmosphere will prevent the
oceans from becoming more acidic and threatening more species. The groundbreaking 2005 study on
ocean acidification conducted by The Royal Society recommended “a major internationally coordinated
effort” to stem the tide of acidification, unequivocally stating, “action needs to be taken now to reduce
global emis Americans consume approximately 700 million farmed oysters per year. Despite our love for
these briny bivalves, shellfish and the coastal communities that depend on them face serious threats.¶ In
a recent piece, Eric Scigliano examines “The Great Oyster Crash” of 2007, in which oyster seed (larvae)
off the coast of Oregon and Washington began dying by the millions, seemingly without cause. After
taking aggressive measures to eliminate bacteria in the tanks, and failing to halt their losses, the owners
began to suspect the problem was a more fundamental change in the makeup of the oceans. With the
help of local scientists, they found that their losses were directly linked to a far more ominous
phenomenon: ocean acidification.¶ As Scigliano explains, “the oceans are the world’s great carbon sink,
holding about 50 times as much of the element as the air.” As carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels
and other industrial processes rise, so too does the level of acidity in the oceans. Once it reaches a
certain threshold, ocean acidification becomes lethal to many species, including clams and oysters,
which become unable to build the shells or skeletons they need to survive.¶ The rise in acidity and
subsequent oyster crash took a significant toll on coastal communities – from 2005 to 2009, West
Coast production dropped from 93 million pounds to 73 million pounds, representing $11 million in
lost sales. This case is among the earliest examples of ocean acidification imposing a direct effect on the
economy. Unfortunately, we can safely say it is far from the last.¶ By installing new technology to
carefully monitor ocean temperatures and chemistry, some west coast hatcheries were able to rebuild,
but their bounty might be short-lived. While temporary mitigation measures have been successful, they
are just that – temporary. Scientists from Mexico, Canada, and the United States found that upwellings
of acidic water like those that wiped out the Pacific hatcheries operate on a delay of several decades –
the water rising from the deep ocean today holds CO2 absorbed approximately 30 to 50 years ago. In
the last 50 years, the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have risen 25 percent – a terrifying presage for
the health of the world’s oceans. Burke Hales, one of the scientists involved in the research, explains:¶
“We’ve mailed a package to ourselves … and it’s hard to call off delivery.”¶ Benoit Eudeline, chief
hatchery scientist for Taylor Shellfish Farms, the largest US producer of farmed shellfish, likened the
current situation to “sitting on a ticking time bomb.”¶ The threat of ocean acidification spreads far
beyond the oyster industry and carries potentially catastrophic implications for the entire food chain.
Basically any fish that might find its way onto your dinner plate relies on krill, plankton, snails or other
shelled creatures that stand to be hit earliest and hardest by acidification. The chart below, for instance,
shows that about half the annual catch by value in the U.S. comes from mollusks and crustaceans and
another 24 percent are animals that directly feed upon these calcifiers – representing billions of dollars
and millions of jobs at stake. (See chart above.)¶ The damaging effects of ocean acidification will likely be
felt even more acutely beyond American shores. A recent study found that mollusk fisheries will
decline most in poor countries that are already struggling with protein deficiencies. In Madagascar,
one of the countries the study predicted would be hit hardest, fishing provides 7 percent of the GDP and
generates nearly half a million jobs – and local officials confirm the effects of both climate change and
ocean acidification are already being felt.¶ Though advancements in science and fisheries management
can help provisionally assuage the blow of ocean acidification, ultimately, only significant measures to
reduce carbon emissions in the atmosphere will prevent the oceans from becoming more acidic and
threatening more species. The groundbreaking 2005 study on ocean acidification conducted by The
Royal Society recommended “a major internationally coordinated effort” to stem the tide of
acidification, unequivocally stating, “action needs to be taken now to reduce global emissions of CO2
to the atmosphere to avoid the risk of irreversible damage to the oceans.” Six years later, we’re still
waiting. sions of CO2 to the atmosphere to avoid the risk of irreversible damage to the oceans.” Six
years later, we’re still waiting.
Loss of biodiversity causes extinction
Reed 12 (David H. Reed Department of Biology, University of Louisville “Impact of Climate Change
on Biodiversity”) 2012
http://link.springer.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-1-4419-7991-9_15.pdf
In the fossil record, an individual vertebrate (amphibian, bird, fish, mammal, or reptile)¶ species lasts
on average at least 1 million years before it becomes extinct. Thus, in an¶ average year, no more than
one out of one million species should go extinct. The current¶ observed extinction rate since 1,600, for
vertebrates, is 2.6 per 10,000 species per year. That¶ is at least 260 times the background rate of
extinction. At this rate, it would take less than¶ 15,000 years to equal the extinction event that killed the
dinosaurs over several million¶ years. Further, because we know that the primary cause of modern
extinctions is the loss,¶ degradation, and fragmentation of habitat, and because we know the response
to habitat¶ loss is not linear, we expect that background rate to continue to increase and probably¶
become an order of magnitude greater than it is currently [81, 82].¶ The reason for this increased and
increasing rate of extinction is not difficult to¶ fathom. Humans have been strongly implicated in
global extinctions for tens of thousands¶ of years [83, 84], but the current mass extinction is due to
the fact that in the last 50 years¶ we have used more of Earth’s resources than we have for the entire
history of humanity¶ before that point. We are losing topsoil at least ten times faster than it can be
replaced [52],¶ about 10% of the Earth’s agricultural land has become unfit for agriculture in the past¶ 40
years while the population continues to expand, 80% of the world’s fish stocks for¶ which assessment
information is available are reported as fully exploited or overexploited,¶ we are using more than 20%
of the world’s renewable fresh water just for irrigation [85],¶ and about 40% of the world’s rainforests
have been lost in the past 50 years. The human¶ population has increased from 3.0 to 6.9 billion
during those same 50 years and we are¶ expecting another two billion over the next 40 years.
However, the current rate of extinction might pale compared to what anthropogenic¶ climate change
threatens [82, 83]. If we do not do something about climate change then all¶ the money and the
effort that has gone into saving species from extinction will likely be¶ lost. This is particularly true
because the current threat from habitat destruction and¶ fragmentation interacts with climate
change in a nonlinear way so that the negative¶ impacts are greater than expected by looking at the
threats independentdly.
CO2
CO2 does cause warming – their authors are deluded and ignore
empirics.
Nuccitelli 12 - Environmental scientist, MA in physics and climate researcher (Dana, “New Research Confirms Global
Warming Has Accelerated” 4/9/12 < http://www.skepticalscience.com/new-research-confirms-global-warming-hasaccelerated.html>)//Beddow
Earth’s climate has varied widely over its history, from ice ages characterised by large ice sheets covering many land areas, to warm
periods with no ice at the poles. Several factors have affected past climate change, including solar variability, volcanic activity and
changes in the composition of the atmosphere. Data from Antarctic ice cores reveals an interesting story for the past 400,000 years.
During this period, CO2 and temperatures are closely correlated, which means they rise and fall
together. However, based on Antarctic ice core data, changes in CO2 follow changes in temperatures by about 600 to 1000 years,
as illustrated in Figure 1 below. This has led some to conclude that CO2 simply cannot be responsible for current global warming.
This statement does not tell the whole story. The initial changes in temperature during this period are explained by changes in the
Earth’s orbit around the sun, which affects the amount of seasonal sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface. In the case of
warming, the lag between temperature and CO2 is explained as follows: as ocean temperatures
rise, oceans release CO2 into the atmosphere. In turn, this release amplifies the warming trend,
leading to yet more CO2 being released. In other words, increasing CO2 levels become
both the cause and effect of further warming. This positive feedback is necessary to
trigger the shifts between glacials and interglacials as the effect of orbital changes is too weak to
cause such variation. Additional positive feedbacks which play an important role in this process include other greenhouse
gases, and changes in ice sheet cover and vegetation patterns. A 2012 study by Shakun et al. looked at temperature changes 20,000
years ago (the last glacial-interglacial transition) from around the world and added more detail to our understanding of the CO2temperature change relationship. They found that: The Earth's orbital cycles trigger the initial warming (starting approximately
19,000 years ago), which is first reflected in the Arctic. This Arctic warming caused large amounts of ice to melt, causing large
amounts of fresh water to flood into the oceans. This influx of fresh water then disrupted the Atlantic Ocean circulation, in turn
causing a seesawing of heat between the hemispheres. The Southern Hemisphere and its oceans warmed first, starting about 18,000
years ago. The warming Southern Ocean then released CO2 into the atmosphere starting around
17,500 years ago, which in turn caused the entire planet to warm via the increased greenhouse
effect. Overall, about 90% of the global warming occurred after the CO2 increase
(Figure 2).
Ag
Warming kills agriculture – turns war and overcomes all defense.
Adaptation can’t solve.
Zhang et al 07 – professor of geography at University of Hong Kong/ Peter Brecke from Sam Nunn School of International
Affairs, Georgia Institute of Tech/others (David D., “Global Climate Change, War, and Population Decline in Recent Human
History”, 10/23/07; < http://www.pnas.org/content/104/49/19214.full#aff-1>)//Beddow
Although scientists have warned of possible social perils resulting from climate change, the impacts of long-term climate change on
social unrest and population collapse have not been quantitatively investigated. In this study, high-resolution paleo-climatic data
have been used to explore at a macroscale the effects of climate change on the outbreak of war and population decline in the
preindustrial era. We show that long-term fluctuations of war frequency and population
changes followed the cycles of temperature change. Further analyses show that cooling impeded
agricultural production, which brought about a series of serious social problems, including price inflation, then successively war
outbreak, famine, and population decline successively. The findings suggest that worldwide and synchronistic
war–peace, population, and price cycles in recent centuries have been driven mainly by longterm climate change. The findings also imply that social mechanisms that might mitigate the impact of climate change were
not significantly effective during the study period. Climate change may thus have played a more important
role and imposed a wider ranging effect on human civilization than has so far been suggested.
Findings of this research may lend an additional dimension to the classic concepts of Malthusianism and Darwinism. Scientists have
noted that social activities heavily depend on climate. They have also pointed out that temperature probably
influences our lives more than any other climatic factor and human society is especially
vulnerable to large, long-term temperature changes (1). However, scientific research on the social
effects of climate change has tended to focus on the economic costs of current and future climate change and has neglected the study
of how societies have historically reacted to long-term climate change. This neglect is unfortunate because a better understanding of
how past climatic changes have influenced human society may help us better understand our future prospects. Recently, important
attempts have been made to use high-resolution, reconstructed paleo-climatic data to elucidate individual cases of prehistoric
cultural/population collapses caused by agricultural failure in the Middle East, United States, and China (2–4). Webster (5) pointed
out that warfare was an adaptive ecological choice in prehistoric societies with limited resources
and growing populations, although he was not able to use systematic, scientific data to support his conclusion. The concept
of environmental conflict has been suggested by several researchers, but they focus only on conflicts caused by short-term climate
variations and meteorological events (6–9). Galloway (10) found that long-term climate change controlled population size in middlelatitude areas. However, his finding lacked quantitative precision because of the absence of high-resolution climate records at the
time. We studied a long span of Chinese history and found that the number of war outbreaks and population
collapses in China is significantly correlated with Northern Hemisphere (NH) temperature
variations and that all of the periods of nationwide unrest, population collapse, and dynastic
change occurred in the cold phases of this period (11–13). As a result of recent scientific breakthroughs in
establishing more precise paleo-climatic records [see supporting information (SI) Text ], we extend the earlier study to the global
and continental levels between A.D. 1400 and A.D. 1900, during the Little Ice Age (LIA; see SI Text ). The hypothesis we propose
posits that long-term climate change has significant direct effects on land-carrying
capacity (as measured by agricultural production). Fluctuation of the carrying capacity
in turn affects the food supply per capita. A shortage of food resources in populated
areas increases the likelihood of armed conflicts, famines, and epidemics, events
that thus reduce population size. As a feedback mechanism, population decline has a dominant tendency to
increase the food supply per capita (seen in decreasing food prices), which results in relative peace and fast population growth. The
interactions among these components in a social system create an important rhythm of macrohistory in agricultural societies. The
simplified pathways of the above chain reactions and feedback loops are represented in SI Fig. 3. With respect to the character of the
causal pathways, the relation between climate and agricultural production has been
demonstrated by many empirical studies (10, 14). Under ecological stress, adaptive choices for animal
species are the reduction of population size, migration, and dietary change. Depopulation typically takes place through starvation
and cannibalism. Humans have more pathways, social mechanisms, to adapt to climate
change and mitigate ecological stress. Besides migration, they include warfare,
economic change, innovation, trade, and peaceful resource redistribution. We believe that in late
agrarian society established political boundaries in populated areas limited mass migration; the result of such mass migration, when
it occurred, often was war. Economic change was a costly and slow process that involved changing cultures, technologies, and habits.
When the speed of human innovation and its transfer were not fast enough to keep
pace with rapid ecological change, famine and disease became difficult to avoid.
Trade and redistribution under the condition of shrinking resources would not
help much because the ecological stress was at a global or very large regional scale.
Finally, human social development in the form of international and national
institutions was not strong enough to buffer the tensions caused by food resource
scarcity. Therefore, war and population decline became common consequences of
climate-induced ecological stress in the late preindustrial era. Recent developments in resource and
environmental studies (e.g., refs. 8, 9, 15, and 16) suggest that limited resources and environmental degradation would have caused
armed conflicts in human history. However, these perceived climate–war–population decline sequences have never been
substantiated with scientific evidence consisting of long-term time series. In the following sections, we verify our hypothesis and
evaluate the role of climate change on war outbreak and population decline with empirical data at global and continental scales.
Warming kills agricultural production – CO2 fertilization is negligible
by comparison.
Hofstrand 11 – Agricultural Economist, Co-Director Agricultural Marketing Resource Center, Iowa State University
Extension (Don, “Climate Change Beginning to Impact Global Crop Production”, September 2011; <
http://www.agmrc.org/renewable_energy/climate_change_and_agriculture/climate-change-beginning-to-impact-global-cropproduction/>)//Beddow
The demand for world agriculture output will grow exponentially over coming decades due to
world population growth and expanding world economies. At the same time, the agriculture
sector will be impacted by changes in climate that will challenge the productivity of
the world’s agriculture resources. World population will continue to grow at a rapid rate. World population in
2010 was 6.9 billion people. By 2050 it is expected to grow to 9.3 billion people. This is a 35 percent increase in just 39 years or the
addition of an average of 60 million people every year. For perspective this increase is equivalent to adding the population of the
United States eight times to world population by 2050. The world’s agriculture resource base will be required to
increase production to meet this increase. In addition to population growth there has been an explosion
of people moving out of poverty and into the middle class. This has occurred in several countries of the world
but primarily in China and India that collectively make up over one-third of the world’s population. Rapid economic growth in these
countries has resulted in increasing livings standards for a significant portion of their populations. As living standards
increase, people’s diets change. Diets high in meat, which usually occurs as living
standards improve, increase the demands on the agriculture sector because
multiple pounds of feed are required to produce a pound of meat. At the same time, millions
of people in Africa and around the world remain in poverty. These people live in an environment of food insecurity
where a weather event can quickly move them to a situation of food shortages. People in these regions
are very sensitive to agricultural commodity price changes. They spend a much larger percentage of their incomes on food as
compared to people in the developed world. Climate change has begun to impact the agricultural landscape. The continuation
of these changes due to rising greenhouse gases will challenge the agriculture sector
to finds ways to maintain and improve productivity. Recent research has shown that climate
change is already beginning to have a negative impact on global crop production
levels. The research project, a collaborative effort by researchers at Stanford University, Columbia University and the National
Bureau of Economic Research, examined the impact of climate change on the global production of maize, wheat, rice and soybeans
from 1980 to 2008. These are the four largest commodity crops and represent roughly 75 percent of the calories that humans
directly or indirectly consume. Access to the report can be found at Climate Trends and Global Crop Production since 1980. The
research is focused on temperature and precipitation changes over this period. A database of yield response models were developed
to evaluate the impact of these climate trends on crop yields over the corresponding 1980 to 2008 time period. In addition, the
positive yield impact of increased carbon dioxide levels was added to the analysis. Assessing the impact of past trends on agricultural
crop yields will help project the impact of future trends on yields during coming decades. It will also help identify which agricultural
regions will be impacted the most. Temperature Global average temperatures have risen by about 0.13 degrees Centigrade (.23
degrees Fahrenheit) per decade since 1950. It is expected to increase to about 0.2 degrees Centigrade (.35 degrees Fahrenheit) per
decade over the next two to three decades. The temperature increase in agriculture areas is expected to be
substantially higher. In many agricultural locations, temperature trends increased and are more
than twice the historic standard deviation, as shown in Figure 1. This includes Europe, Northern China, sub-Saharan
Africa and Brazil. Sixty five percent of countries experienced temperature trends in crop production regions of at least one standard
deviation for maize and rice. The corresponding percent of countries was 75 percent for wheat and 53 percent for soybeans. About a
quarter of the countries experience trends of more than two standard deviations for each crop. By comparison, trends were evenly
distributed about zero during the previous 20 year period (1960-1980). 1/ Linear trends for the growing season for the predominant
crop in each grid cell. 2/ Trends are expressed as the ratio of the total trend for the 29 year period (1980-2008) divided by the
historic standard deviation for the 1960-2000 period. 3/ Only cells with at least one percent of the area covered by either maize,
wheat, rice or soybeans are shown. Precipitation Precipitation trends were less dramatic than temperature trends as shown in Figure
2. Modest increases or decreases in precipitation are evident in large parts of the world’s agricultural regions. Some parts of the
world have experienced significant increases in precipitation while others have had significant decreases. However, when averaged,
the effects of changes in growing season rainfall are near zero. Figure 2. Linear Trend in Precipitation, 1980-2008, measured in
standard deviations 1/ 2/ 3/ 1/ Linear trends for the growing season for the predominant crop in each grid cell. 2/ Trends are
expressed as the ratio of the total trend for the 29 year period (1980-2008) divided by the historic standard deviation for the 19602000 period. 3/ Only cells with at least one percent of the area covered by either maize, wheat, rice or soybeans are shown. Carbon
Dioxide Increased levels of carbon dioxide have a positive impact on plant growth. A plant takes in atmospheric carbon
dioxide (CO2) during the photosynthesis process, utilizes the carbon (C) to build the plant, and
releases the oxygen (O2) back into the atmosphere. For many crops, the photosynthetic pathway
allows the plant to respond to elevated levels of atmospheric CO2. These are referred to as C3 plants and
include wheat, rice, soybeans and most weeds. However, the photosynthetic pathway of C4 plants
such as maize does not respond to elevated levels of CO2, so the impact on yield is
likely much smaller. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide have increased by 47 parts per million (386 ppm less 339
ppm) over the 1980 to 2008 time period (Figure 3). Experiments of the impact of elevated levels of atmospheric CO2 indicated that
the 47 ppm increase would increase the yields of C3 crops by approximately three percent. Figure 3. World Atmospheric Carbon
Dioxide (CO2) Levels The affect of temperature and precipitation trends on the yields of maize, rice, wheat and soybeans is shown in
Table 1. The impact on yields is greater for temperature than for precipitation. The greatest yield impact of temperature was on
wheat followed by maize. When the three percent yield gain from elevated CO2 levels is added to wheat, soybeans and rice, the yield
response for rice and soybeans become positive but remained negative for maize and wheat. Estimated changes in yields for maize,
rice, wheat and soybeans for major producing countries are shown in Figure 4. The country with the largest impact was wheat
production in Russia with an estimated negative yield impact of almost 15 percent. For the U.S., yield changes due to temperature
and precipitation trends are negligible for maize, wheat and soybeans. This corresponds to the small temperature and precipitation
trends shown in Figures 1 and 2. Yield impacts were smaller for rice than the other crops. The confidence intervals of the yield
estimates were larger for soybeans than the other crops. Figure 4. Estimated net impact of climate trends from 1980 to 2008 on crop
yields for major producing countries and for global production. Values are expressed as percent of average yields. A = Maize, B =
Rice, C = Wheat, D = Soybeans. * Gray bars show median estimate and error bars show 5 percent to 95 percent confidence internal
from bootstrap resampling with 500 replicates. Red and blue dots show median estimate of impact for temperature trend and
precipitation trend, respectively. Note, the sum of the temperature (red dots) and precipitation (blue dots) estimates equals the total
estimate shown by the gray bars. The researchers calculated the impact of the climate trends on global crop yields. Maize
production would have been about six percent higher and wheat production about four percent
higher had the climate trends since 1980 not existed. The effects on rice and soybeans were lower and not
statistically significant. The researchers also calculated the impact of climate trends on global crop prices using price elasticities.
The estimated changes in crop production excluding and including carbon dioxide fertilization
resulted in commodity price increases of about 20 percent and about 5 percent respectively. The
analysis does not take into account the potentially mitigating impact of crop production climate adaptation strategies currently
taking place such as where crops are grown and how crops are grow (seed varieties, planting dates, etc.) Some adaptations strategies
are already taking place in the U.S. Midwest. However, it also does not take into account the negative impact of the increased
occurrence of extreme weather events associated with global warming. An increase in the frequency of extreme weather events has
been documented in the U.S. Midwest (Climate Change in Iowa). Implications To meet this expanding world demand, agriculture
must become more adept at anticipating climate trends and finding ways of adapting to these changes. The research report shows
that the impact of temperature on crop yields is a larger factor than the impact of precipitation. This would indicate that adaptation
strategies should focus more on temperature changes than on precipitation changes. The research report concluded that North
America is the agricultural region least impacted by temperature and precipitation changes. The U.S. already accounts for about
forty percent of the world’s production of corn and soybeans and a substantial portion of the world’s wheat. The U.S. share may
increase if these patterns persist and the rest of the world is increasingly challenged by temperature increases. It will have significant
implications for the world grain trade and the role of the U.S. in feeding the world. Most of the increase in agricultural production
over the last century is the result of yield increases rather than agricultural land area expansion. However, due to the
world’s rapidly growing demand for food and the negative yield impact of climate
change on food production, there will be great pressure to expand the world’s
agricultural land area. Expanding the agricultural land area may significantly
increase carbon dioxide emissions due to the release of carbon from converting
native areas to farmland as discussed in Agricultural Research Combats Climate Change.
Increased investments in agricultural research in the U. S. and across the world is needed to meet the challenge of world food
production. However, this must be combined with programs to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In the long run,
agricultural research will not be able to compensate for the devastating effects of climate
change on world agricultural production.
Negative impacts outweigh the positive – our evidence is comparative.
MAFF 07 – Japanese Agriculture, Forestry, Fisheries, Research Council (Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries,
“Impact of Global Warming on Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and Possible Countermeasures in Japan”, Report on Research
and Development in Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries No. 23, 2007; <
http://www.s.affrc.go.jp/docs/e/pdf/no23e.pdf>)//Beddow
The report of Working Group 2 on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability reveals that global warming is having an
impact on nature and society around the world, such as the melting of glaciers and frozen
tundra, advancement in the springtime phenomenon in animals and plants, and habitat shifts.
Global warming is expected to have a serious impact on water resources, ecosystems, food
production and other aspects of life. For agricultural production, low latitudes such as
the tropics are more vulnerable than high latitudes to global warming. The IPCC
Fourth Assessment Report predicts that grain production will decrease in low latitudes and
increase in middle-high latitudes if the global mean temperature increases 2 to 3°C. This means that
global warming will have a greater impact on developing countries (most of which are located at low latitudes in Asia and Africa)
than on developed countries such as Japan. However, a temperature increase of more than 2 to 3°C will
probably result in decreased grain production in both low and high latitudes. The negative
impact of global warming will be greater than the positive impact.
Warming kills agricultural production – weeds, evaporation,
humidity, storms, flooding, soil erosion, pests, disease and worker
efficiency. Subsumes CO2 fertilization turn.
ARM - education.arm.gov/teacher-tools/background/possible-benefits
Given the need for caution, it may still be possible to make a few general comments. With more carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere, the rate of photosynthesis in most tropical plants will increase. Photosynthesis
requires carbon dioxide, water, and sunlight in order to take place. The so-called C3 plants [all major
tropical plants except corn (corn), sugar cane, and pineapple] could increase their production of biomass by up to 30 percent.
However, increased photosynthesis will also increase weed growth, which could
limit the yields of certain edible plants. Higher temperatures will lead to a greater rate of
evaporation, as the hotter the air, the more water vapor it can contain. In some places, especially limestone
islands, this could possibly lead to greater occurrence of droughts in low-lying areas, and
the soil fertility could decline. Higher temperatures and greater evaporation from ocean
surfaces may lead to an increase in the air humidity. With greater air humidity and
higher sea temperatures, there could be a greater frequency of severe cyclones
during the cyclone season, and a possible lengthening of the cyclone season. Warm
temperatures and higher humidity may well lead generally to an increased cloud cover and greater rainfall. So, low-lying
areas could be subjected to more flooding [by rain and the sea], soils will suffer greater leaching
and loss of fertility, and the hotter, more humid conditions will favor the incubation of
agricultural pests and diseases. However, greater rainfall will produce more rapid chemical weathering in the subsoil and
parent material [rocks], so releasing more nutrients into the soil. Higher temperatures and humidity will
undoubtedly lead to greater heat stress for humans. Outdoor workers, in
particular, will feel the heat more acutely, and probably be less efficient. Animals,
too, will suffer from heat stress, and their reproductive abilities may decline. On mountainous islands,
increased temperatures should mean that the land can be cultivated to higher levels than at present. Places that are -300 meters
high will experience similar temperatures to those found today at sea level. In Papua New Guinea, coffee will be grown at higher
altitudes, on steeper slopes, and overall, the amount of productive agricultural land could increase by as much as 10 percent. It is
possible that warmer temperatures can lead to a shortening of the time needed for crops to
ripen, and this might mean that fruit are smaller, with a lower overall yield.
Reversible
Global warming is reversible but this decade is key.
Chestney 12 – Reuters reporter, citing executive director of the Australian National University’s Climate Change Institute
(Nina, “Global Warming Close to Becoming Irreversible – Scientists”, 3/26/13; < http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/26/usclimate-thresholds-idUSBRE82P0UJ20120326>)//Beddow
(Reuters) -
The world is close to reaching tipping points that will make it irreversibly
hotter, making this decade critical in efforts to contain global warming, scientists
the world's temperature looks set to rise by six degrees
Celsius by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions are allowed to rise uncontrollably. As emissions
grow, scientists say the world is close to reaching thresholds beyond which the effects
on the global climate will be irreversible, such as the melting of polar ice sheets and loss
of rainforests. "This is the critical decade. If we don't get the curves turned around
this decade we will cross those lines," said Will Steffen, executive director of the Australian National
warned on Monday. Scientific estimates differ but
University's climate change institute, speaking at a conference in London. Despite this sense of urgency, a new global climate treaty
forcing the world's biggest polluters, such as the United States and China, to curb emissions will only be agreed on by 2015 - to enter
into force in 2020. "We are on the cusp of some big changes," said Steffen. "We can ... cap
temperature rise at two degrees, or cross the threshold beyond which the system shifts to a
much hotter state." TIPPING POINTS For ice sheets - huge refrigerators that slow down the warming of the planet - the
tipping point has probably already been passed, Steffen said. The West Antarctic ice sheet has shrunk over the last decade and the
Greenland ice sheet has lost around 200 cubic km (48 cubic miles) a year since the 1990s. Most climate estimates agree the
Amazon rainforest will get drier as the planet warms. Mass tree deaths caused by drought have
raised fears it is on the verge of a tipping point, when it will stop absorbing emissions and add to
them instead. Around 1.6 billion tonnes of carbon were lost in 2005 from the rainforest and 2.2 billion tonnes in 2010, which
has undone about 10 years of carbon sink activity, Steffen said. One of the most worrying and unknown thresholds is the Siberian
permafrost, which stores frozen carbon in the soil away from the atmosphere. "There is about 1,600 billion tonnes of carbon there about twice the amount in the atmosphere today - and the northern high latitudes are experiencing the most severe temperature
change of any part of the planet," he said. In a worst case scenario, 30 to 63 billion tonnes of carbon a year
could be released by 2040, rising to 232 to 380 billion tonnes by 2100. This compares to around 10 billion
tonnes of CO2 released by fossil fuel use each year. Increased CO2 in the atmosphere has also turned
oceans more acidic as they absorb it. In the past 200 years, ocean acidification has happened at a speed not
seen for around 60 million years, said Carol Turley at Plymouth Marine Laboratory. This threatens coral reef
development and could lead to the extinction of some species within decades, as well as to an
increase in the number of predators. As leading scientists, policy-makers and environment groups gathered at the
"Planet Under Pressure" conference in London, opinions differed on what action to take this decade. London School of Economics
professor Anthony Giddens favours focusing on the fossil fuel industry, seeing as renewables only make up 1 percent of the global
energy mix. "We have enormous inertia within the world economy and should make much more effort to close down coal-fired
power stations," he said. Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell favours working on technologies leading to negative emissions in the long run,
like carbon capture on biomass and in land use, said Jeremy Bentham, the firm's vice president of global business environment. The
conference runs through Thursday.
Even if warming is irreversible, carbon reductions mitigate its worst
effects.
Desjardins 4/2 – member of Concordia university Media Relations Department, academic writer, citing Damon Matthews;
associate professor of the Department of Geography, Planning and Environment at Concordia University, PhD, Member of the
Global Environmental and Climate Change Center (Cléa, “Global Warming: Irreversible but Not Inevitable”, 4/2/13; <
http://www.concordia.ca/now/what-we-do/research/20130402/global-warming-irreversible-but-not-inevitable.php>)//Beddow
Carbon dioxide emission cuts will immediately affect the rate of future global
warming There is a persistent misconception among both scientists and the public that there is
a delay between emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) and the climate’s response to those
emissions. This misconception has led policy makers to argue that CO2 emission cuts
implemented now will not affect the climate system for many decades. This
erroneous line of argument makes the climate problem seem more intractable than it
actually is, say Concordia University’s Damon Matthews and MIT’s Susan Solomon in a recent Science article. The researchers
show that immediate decreases in CO2 emissions would in fact result in an immediate
decrease in the rate of climate warming. Explains Matthews, professor in the Department of Geography,
Planning and Environment, “If we can successfully decrease CO2 emissions in the near future, this
change will be felt by the climate system when the emissions reductions are implemented – not
in several decades." “ The potential for a quick climate response to prompt cuts in
CO2 emissions opens up the possibility that the climate benefits of emissions
reductions would occur on the same timescale as the political decisions
themselves .” In their paper, Matthews and Solomon, Ellen Swallow Richards professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and
Climate Science, show that the onus for slowing the rate of global warming falls squarely on current
efforts at reducing CO2 emissions, and the resulting future emissions that we produce. This means
that there are critical implications for the equity of carbon emission choices currently being discussed internationally. Total
emissions from developing countries may soon exceed those from developed nations. But developed countries are expected to
maintain a far higher per-capita contribution to present and possible future warming. “This disparity clarifies the urgency for lowcarbon technology investment and diffusion to enable developing countries to continue to develop,” says Matthews. “Emission
cuts made now will have an immediate effect on the rate of global warming,” he
asserts. “I see more hope for averting difficult-to-avoid negative impacts by accelerating
advances in technology development and diffusion, than for averting climate system changes
that are already inevitable. Given the enormous scope and complexity of the climate mitigation
challenge, clarifying these points of hope is critical to motivate change.”
Decreasing CO2 emissions now will decrease concentration of CO2 in
the atmosphere
Matthews and Solomon 13 (Damon Department of Geography, Planning and Environment, Concordia
University Susan Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, MIT Irreversible does not mean unavoidable
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22global+warming%22+%22inevitable%22&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=1%2C23&as_ylo=2013)
¶
The distinction between how much irreversible warming is expected based on past emissions
versus how much can be avoided through our coming choices is linked not only to inertia in how
the climate responds to CO2 concentration changes, but also to inertia in the uptake of CO2
emissions by the global carbon cycle. The climate responds to increases in atmospheric CO2
levels by warming, but the warming is slowed by the long timescale of heat storage in
the ocean, which represents the physical climate inertia. There would indeed be
unrealized warming associated with current CO2 concentrations, but only if they
were held fixed at current levels(2). If emissions decrease enough, the CO2 levels in
the atmosphere can also decrease. This potential for atmospheric CO2 to decrease
over time results from inertia in the carbon cycle associated with the slow uptake
of anthropogenic CO2 by the ocean. This carbon cycle inertia affects temperature in the
opposite direction as the physical climate inertia, and is of approximately the same magnitude(1,
5). Because of the equal and opposing effects of physical climate and carbon cycle inertia, there
is almost no additional unrealized warming from past CO2 emissions. If emissions were to
abruptly cease, global average temperatures would remain approximately constant for many
centuries, but they would not increase very much, if at all. Similarly, if emissions were to
decrease, temperatures would increase less than they otherwise would have
Decrease in CO2 emissions lead to decrease rate of CO2 allowing for
larger window to solve warming
Matthews and Solomon 13 (Damon Department of Geography, Planning and Environment, Concordia
University Susan Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, MIT Irreversible does not mean unavoidable
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22global+warming%22+%22inevitable%22&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=1%2C23&as_ylo=2013)
¶
This means that while the CO2-induced warming already present on our planet – the
cumulative result of our past emissions – is irreversible, any further increase in
CO2-induced warming is entirely the result of current CO2 emissions. Warming at
the end of this century (and beyond) will depend on the cumulative emissions we
emit between now and then. But future warming is not unavoidable: CO2 emissions
reductions would lead to an immediate decrease in the rate of global warming.
Positive Feedbacks
Melting creates more human activity in polar regions causing faster
polar melting
Lefeber 8/24/2012 (Rene DOCTOR CHAIR IN INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL
LAW THE THE UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM Polar Warming: An Opportune
Inconveniencehttp://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2151241
The inaccessibility of the Polar Regions explains the relative pristine state of these
regions to date. The human presence in these regions is presently limited by the
extreme climatological circumstances. This will change as a result of polar
warming. The ecological boundaries of the Polar Regions will shift in the directions of the
geographical poles resulting in a diminishing area of the ecological Polar Regions. Climate
change and other ecological processes with an anthropogenic origin, such as the
acidification of soils and waters, the depletion of the ozone layer, and the
accumulation of persistent organic pollutants in people and animals constitute
serious threats for the fragile ecosystems of the Polar Regions. These processes will
impact on the capacity of the Polar Regions to supply goods and services of a certain quality in a
certain quantity. The use of the Polar Regions will change accordingly. There will be positive
changes, but there will also be negative changes. Existing activities will disappear and new
activities will emerge.
AT: Adaptation
Adaptation fails – warming is just too extreme.
Stabinsky 12 – Professor at College of the Atlantic USA, compiled for WWF International Global Climate and Energy
Initiative (Doreen, “Tackling the Limits to Adaptation: An International Framework to Address ‘Loss and Damage’ From Climate
Change Impacts”, November 2012; <
http://www.careclimatechange.org/files/Doha_COP_18/tackling_the_limits_lr.pdf>)//Beddow
When mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions by responsible countries is insufficient to “prevent dangerous anthropogenic
interference with the climate system”, 22 countries are forced to undertake disaster risk reduction and adaptation measures to
prevent permanent loss and damage. There are, however, limits to how far disaster risk reduction and
adaptation can reduce loss and damage. In the case of disaster risk reduction, some types of disasters will
increase in frequency and severity (see Box 1 on the latest intergovernmental panel on climate Change (IPCC) findings
regarding extreme events), overwhelming both risk reduction measures and generally the ability of
most developing countries to cope with the impacts of those disasters. Moreover, loss and damage from
extreme events extend beyond immediate losses of property and life. In St. Lucia, damage from hurricane Tomas was estimated at
about 34% of total gdp. 23 Such devastating impact has a serious effect on long-term prospects for
sustainable development. 24 Adaptation to 2°C of warming will be more difficult than for 1.5° c . Adapting to 4° c or 6° c of
warming may be impossible. Moreover, given the changing nature of the global climate,
adaptation will always be insufficient, requiring a continuous learning process towards a
constantly moving boundary. The greater the warming, the more loss and damage that can be
anticipated from the adverse effects of climate change. Similarly, the less support for adaptation in terms of
finance, technology and capacity, the more loss and damage will result. A country’s level of development will also affect how its
population experiences loss and damage, as poverty and related socio-economic and infrastructure weaknesses exacerbate the
impacts and adverse effects of climate change. But a country’s lack of development or status of development is not an excuse for
inaction by the global community to help them respond to severe climate loss and damage. There are very real limits
to how far human systems and ecosystems can adapt to most of the slow-onset
processes identified in UNFCCC decision 1/CP.16. This is true particularly for rises in
temperature and sea levels, ocean acidification, loss of biodiversity, salinization
and desertification. Because such processes progress and increase their impact over time –
and often at large scale, adaptation gradually becomes less possible. As temperatures and sea
levels rise, territory will become uninhabitable and unproductive. s oil moisture levels will
decrease to the point that cultivation of crops is no longer viable in entire regions. Groundwater
sources in coastal areas will become too saline to be used as drinking water. Adaptation will become
impossible on low-lying islands, in settlements close to sea level, and in the most arid regions. This will lead to permanent loss of
lands, livelihoods and cultural resources. 26 Permanent loss and damage from slow-onset disasters will go far beyond economic loss
– livelihoods will be lost, territory will have to be abandoned, and migrants from non-productive lands will lose their homes, culture
and community.
Adaptation fails – lack of knowledge.
IRIN 7/2 – news agency focusing on humanitarian stories, project created by the UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (Integrated Regional Information Networks, “What are the limits to climate change adaptation?”, 7/2/13; <
http://www.irinnews.org/report/98340/what-are-the-limits-to-climate-change-adaptation>)//Beddow
JOHANNESBURG, 2 July 2013 (IRIN) - In the absence of decisive action to significantly cut the emission of earth-warming
greenhouse gases, most poor countries have resigned themselves to adapting to the effects of climate change. But as recent data
show, the global concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hit 400 parts per million - something that has not happened in
the last million years, and possibly not in the last 25 million years, according to a National Aeronautics and Space Administration
scientist - leading to the questions: do even we know what we are adapting to, and what are the limits to
our adaptation? A recent paper published in Nature Climate Change points out that many communities are
already facing limits to their capacity to adapt. They suggest the development of a framework to define
and identify these limits, both for individuals and for communities. One of the paper’s six authors, Richard Klein, a senior researcher
at the Stockholm Environment Institute and an author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, explained in an
email to IRIN, "For example, a farmer may no longer be able to grow enough food to sustain his or her family (e.g., due to saltwater
intrusion or recurring droughts) and decide to give up farming and move to the city to become an informal worker. On the one hand,
that's a form of adaptation, but from the perspective of the farmer, who would have preferred to keep farming, a limit has been
reached. But from the perspective of the community or the country, food security may not be at risk so no limit has been reached.”
Knowing the extent to which an individual, community or country can adapt will be critical for policymakers, including those
charting a country’s agricultural path and those planning for urban growth. Yet little is known about the limits of adaptation. “It's
intuitive that the existence of limits should have policy implications, but the challenge is that,
even though we know that limits are real, our ability to predict them is very small indeed,” said
Klein. Defining limits The authors suggest a risk-based approach to define these limits and a framework to identify them. “Limits
to adaptation are a function of both the rate and magnitude of climate change, and
adaptive capacity,” wrote Klein. “Limits are also scale-dependent; they could refer to individual farmers or households, to
communities, to sectors, to countries, and so on.” The authors propose defining an “adaptation limit as a
point at which an actor can no longer secure valued objectives from intolerable
risk through adaptive action.” They offer rice farming as an example. South Asian rice plants' ability to pollinate
and flower peaks at 26 degrees Celsius; there is a 10 percent decline in yield for every one degree Celsius above that. Here, the
“adaptation limit” is the inability to breed rice varieties that pollinate at all above 32 to 35 degrees Celsius. The “valued objective” is
to produce rice as a staple crop and for export. The “intolerable risk is a level of loss in rice production, farmer livelihoods, income
from exports and food security. Rising temperatures increase the future probability that rice harvests may fail.” If this adaptation
limit is reached, alternative sources of affordable rice will have to be found for consumers, and rice farmers will have to grow other
crops to compensate for the loss of income. Preparing for hardships Collective efforts to adapt will likely be a complex process, as the
authors point out the tolerable degree of risk varies from individual to individual. The best policies would better manage change
before the capacity to adapt is exhausted. But much more must be learned before appropriate policies can be developed. The authors
underscore the urgent need for research in key areas - including agriculture, water resources management and disease control - “to
determine where limits may exist so that actors may anticipate and plan to mediate the hardships that cannot be avoided.” They
suggest a focus on strengthening early warning systems within countries and communities and improving the capacity to operate
across the various scales - from individuals to sectors - as the impact of climate change unfolds.
AT: Solar
Best empirical data compilation confirms – sun isn’t causing global
warming.
Nuccitelli 12 – environmental scientist, MA in physics and climate researcher (Dana, “Solar Activity and Climate: Is the Sun
Causing Global Warming?”, 9/4/12; < http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warmingadvanced.htm>)//Beddow
It's often considered "common sense" that global warming is caused by the Sun. After all, the Sun is the source of almost all of the
energy on Earth. The Sun has both direct and indirect influences over the Earth's temperature, and we can evaluate whether these
effects could be responsible for a significant amount of the recent global warming. As shown in the Intermediate level rebuttal of this
argument, dozens of studies have concluded that the Sun simply cannot account for the recent global warming, but here we'll go
through the calculations for ourselves. Direct solar effect The Sun's largest influence on the Earth's surface temperature is through
incoming solar radiation, also known as total solar irradiance (TSI). Changes in TSI can be converted into a radiative forcing, which
tells us the energy imbalance it causes on Earth. This energy imbalance is what causes a global temperature change. The solar
radiative forcing is TSI in Watts per square meter (W-m-2) divided by 4 to account for spherical geometry, and multiplied by 0.7 to
account for planetary albedo (Meehl 2002). The albedo factor is due to the fact that the planet reflects approximately 30% of the
incoming solar radiation. This is a very straightforward and easy to understand formula - the larger the change in solar irradiance,
the larger the energy imbalance it causes, and thus the larger the radiative forcing. Studies have reconstructed TSI over the past 300
years. Wang, Lean, and Sheeley (2005) compared a flux transport model with geomagnetic activity and cosmogenic isotope records
and to derive a reconstruction of TSI since 1713. Satellites have directly measured TSI since 1978. As you can see, over the past 32
years, TSI has remained unchanged on average. In the early 20th century, from about 1900 to 1950 there was an increase in TSI
from about 1365.5 to 1366 W-m-2. The change in global temperature in response to a radiative forcing is: Where 'dT' is the change in
the Earth's average surface temperature, 'λ' is the climate sensitivity, usually with units in Kelvin or degrees Celsius per Watts per
square meter (°C/[W-m-2]), and 'dF' is the radiative forcing. So now to calculate the change in temperature, we just need to know
the climate sensitivity. Studies have given a possible range of values of 2 to 4.5°C warming for a doubling of CO2 (IPCC 2007), which
corresponds to a range of 0.54 to 1.2°C/(W-m-2) for λ. We can then calculate the change in global temperature caused by the
increase in TSI since 1900 using the formulas above. Although Wang, Lean, and Sheeley's reconstruction puts the change in TSI
since 1900 at about 0.5 W-m-2, previous studies have shown a larger change, so we'll estimate the change in TSI at 0.5 to 2 W-m-2.
with a most likely value of 0.15°C We can confirm this by comparing the calculation to empirical observations. From 1900 to 1950
the Earth's surface temperature warmed by about 0.4°C. Over that period, humans increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere by about 20 parts per million by volume. This corresponds to an anthropogenic warming of: with a most likely value of
0.22°C. Therefore, the solar forcing combined with the anthropogenic CO2 forcing and other minor
forcings (such as decreased volcanic activity) can account for the 0.4°C warming in the early
20th century, with the solar forcing accounting for about 40% of the total warming. Over the
past century, this increase in TSI is responsible for about 15-20% of global warming (Meehl 2004).
But since TSI hasn't increased in at least the past 32 years (and more like 60 years, based on
reconstructions), the Sun is not directly responsible for the warming over that period.
Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) used multiple linear regression to quantify and remove the effects of the El Niño Southern Oscillation
(ENSO) and solar and volcanic activity from the surface and lower troposphere temperature data. They found that since 1979, solar
activity has had a very slight cooling effect of between -0.014 and -0.023°C per decade, depending on the data set (Table 1, Figure 3).
Like Foster and Rahmstorf, Lean and Rind (2008) performed a multiple linear regression on the temperature data, and found that
while solar activity can account for about 11% of the global warming from 1889 to 2006, it can only account for 1.6% of the warming
from 1955 to 2005, and had a slight cooling effect (-0.004°C per decade) from 1979 to 2005. Note that this multiple linear regression
technique it makes no assumptions about various solar effects. Any solar effect (either direct or indirect) which is correlated to solar
activity (i.e. solar irradiance, solar magnetic field [and thus galactic cosmic rays], ultraviolet [UV] radiation, etc.) is accounted for in
the linear regression. Both Lean and Rind and Foster and Rahmstorf found that solar activity has played a very
small role in the recent observed global warming. Indirect Solar Effects Ultraviolet Radiation It has
also been proposed that ultraviolet (UV) radiation, which varies more than other solar irradiance wavelengths, could amplify the
solar influence on the global climate through interactions with the stratosphere and atmospheric ozone. Shindell et al. (1999)
examined this possibility, but found that while this UV variability has a significant influence over regional
temperatures, it has little effect on global surface temperatures. "Solar cycle variability may therefore play a
significant role in regional surface temperatures, even though its influence on the global mean surface temperature is small (0.07 K
for December–February)." Moreover, Shindell et al. found that anthropogenic ozone depletion (via
chlorofluorocarbon emissions) may have reduced the impact of UV variability on the climate,
and may have even offset it entirely. "Another consideration is that upper stratospheric ozone has decreased
significantly since the 1970s as a result of destruction by halogens released from chlorofluorocarbons. This ozone decrease,
which has been much larger than the modeled solar-induced ozone increases, may have limited
the ability of solar irradiance changes to affect climate over recent decades, or may have even
offset those effects." Galactic cosmic rays Henrik Svensmark has proposed that galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) could exert
significant influence over global temperatures (Svensmark 1998). The theory goes that the solar magnetic field deflects GCRs, which
are capable of seeding cloud formation on Earth. So if solar magnetic field were to increase, fewer GCRs would reach Earth, seeding
fewer low-level clouds, which are strongly reflective. So an increased solar magnetic field can indirectly decrease the Earth's albedo
(reflectivity), thus causing the planet to warm. Thus in order for this theory to be plausible, Solar magnetic
field must have a long-term positive trend. Galactic cosmic ray flux on Earth must have a longterm negative trend. Cosmic rays must successfully seed low-level clouds. Low-level cloud cover must have a long-term
negative trend. Fortunately we have empirical observations with which to test these requirements. Solar magnetic field Solar
magnetic field strength correlates strongly with other solar activity, such as TSI and sunspot number. As is the case with
these other solar attributes, solar magnetic field has not changed appreciably over the past three
decades (Lockwood 2001). Galactic Cosmic Ray Flux Cosmic ray flux on Earth has been monitored since the mid-20th
century, and has shown no significant trend over that period. GCR Cloud Seeding Numerous studies have investigated the
effectiveness of GCRs in cloud formation. Kazil et al. (2006) found: "the variation of ionization by galactic cosmic rays over the
decadal solar cycle does not entail a response...that would explain observed variations in global cloud cover" Sloan and Wolfendale
(2008) found: "we estimate that less than 23%, at the 95% confidence level, of the 11-year cycle
changes in the globally averaged cloud cover observed in solar cycle 22 is due to the change in
the rate of ionization from the solar modulation of cosmic rays." Kristjansson et al. (2008) found: "no
statistically significant correlations were found between any of the four cloud
parameters and GCR" Calogovic et al. (2010) found: "no response of global cloud cover to Forbush decreases at any
altitude and latitude." Kulmala et al. (2010) also found "galactic cosmic rays appear to play a minor role for
atmospheric aerosol formation events, and so for the connected aerosol-climate effects as well."
Low-Level Cloud Cover Unfortunately observational low-level cloud cover data is somewhat lacking and even yields contradictory
results. Norris et al. (2007) found "Global mean time series of surface- and satellite-observed low-level and total cloud cover exhibit
very large discrepancies, however, implying that artifacts exist in one or both data sets....The surface-observed low-level cloud cover
time series averaged over the global ocean appears suspicious because it reports a very large 5%-sky-cover increase between 1952
and 1997. Unless low-level cloud albedo substantially decreased during this time period, the reduced solar absorption caused by the
reported enhancement of cloud cover would have resulted in cooling of the climate system that is inconsistent with the observed
temperature record." So the jury is still out regarding whether or not there's a long-term trend in low-level cloud cover. Inability to
explain other observations In addition to these multiple lines of empirical evidence which contradict the GCR warming theory, the
galactic cosmic ray theory cannot easily explain the cooling of the upper atmosphere, greater
warming at night, or greater warming at higher latitudes. These are fingerprints of the
increased greenhouse effect, the major mechanism of anthropogenic global
warming. Dansgaard-Oeschger Events Some individuals, most notably Fred Singer, have argued that Dansgaard-Oeschger
(D-O, a.k.a. Bond) events could be causing the current global warming. D-O events are rapid
climate fluctuations that occur quasi-periodically with a 1,470-year recurrance time and which,
according to Singer, are "likely caused by the sun." However, there is significant debate as to the cause of these DO events, with changes in solar output being just one possibility (NOAA Paleoclimatology). Regardless, the most obvious
flaw in this argument is that the planet wasn't warming 1,470 years ago. The previous warm
event was the Medieval Warm Period approximately 1,000 years ago. Bond et al. (1999) added further
evidence that the timing of D-O events disqualifies them from being responsible for the current warming, by showing that the most
recent D-O event may have contributed to the Little Ice Age (LIA): "evidence from cores near Newfoundland confirms previous
suggestions that the Little lce Age was the most recent cold phase of the 1-2kyr cycle" And a study by Rahmstorf (2003) also
concludes that the LIA may be the most recent cold phase of the D-O cycle, and his research suggests that the 1,470-year periodicity
is so regular that it's more likely due to an orbital cycle than a solar cycle. "While the earlier estimate of ±20% [Schulz, 2002] is
consistent with a solar cycle (the 11-year sunspot cycle varies in period by ±14%), a much higher precision would point more to an
orbital cycle. The closest cycle known so far is a lunar cycle of 1,800 years [De Rop, 1971], which cannot be reconciled with the 1,470year pacing found in the Greenland data. The origin of this regular pacing thus remains a mystery." However, according to Braun et
al. (2005), D-O events could be caused by a combination of solar cycles and freshwater input into the North Atlantic Ocean. But their
study also concludes that D-O events are not expected to occur during the Holocene (the current geologic epoch). "the 1,470-year
climate response in the simulation is restricted to glacial climate and cannot be excited for substantially different (such as Holocene)
boundary conditions...Thus, our mechanism for the glacial ,1,470-year climate cycle is also consistent with the lack of a clear and
pronounced 1,470-year cycle in Holocene climate archives." The bottom line is that regardless of whether
or not the D-O cycles are triggered by the Sun, the timing is clearly not right for
this cycle to be responsible for the current warming. Particularly since solar
output has not increased in approximately 60 years, and has only increased a
fraction of a percent in the past 300 years, as discussed above. Ironically, prior to publishing a
book in 2007 which blamed the current warming on D-O cycles, Singer argued that the planet wasn't warming as recently as 2003.
So the planet isn't warming, but it's warming due to the D-O cycles? It's quite clear that in reality, neither of these contradictory
arguments is even remotely correct. Inability to explain empirical observations Aside from the fact that solar effects cannot
physically explain the recent global warming, as with GCRs, there are several empirical observations which solar warming could not
account for. For example, if global warming were due to increased solar output, we would expect to see
all layers of the atmosphere warm, and more warming during the day when the surface is
bombarded with solar radiation than at night. Instead we observe a cooling of the upper
atmosphere and greater warming at night, which are fingerprints of the increased greenhouse
effect. Conservation of Energy Huber and Knutti (2011) have published a paper in Nature Geoscience, Anthropogenic and natural
warming inferred from changes in Earth’s energy balance. They take an approach in this study which utilizes the principle of
conservation of energy for the global energy budget, and summarize their methodology: "We use a massive ensemble of the
Bern2.5D climate model of intermediate complexity, driven by bottom-up estimates of historic radiative forcing F, and constrained
by a set of observations of the surface warming T since 1850 and heat uptake Q since the 1950s....Between 1850 and 2010, the
climate system accumulated a total net forcing energy of 140 x 1022 J with a 5-95% uncertainty range of 95-197 x 1022 J,
corresponding to an average net radiative forcing of roughly 0.54 (0.36-0.76)Wm-2." Essentially, Huber and Knutti take the
estimated global heat content increase since 1850, calculate how much of the increase is due to various estimated radiative forcings,
and partition the increase between increasing ocean heat content and outgoing longwave radiation. The authors note that more than
85% of the global heat uptake (Q) has gone into the oceans, including increasing the heat content of the deeper oceans, although
their model only accounts for the upper 700 meters. Figure 6 is a similar graphic to that presented in Meehl et al. (2004), comparing
the average global surface warming simulated by the model using natural forcings only (blue), anthropogenic forcings only (red),
and the combination of the two (gray). In Figure 7, Huber and Knutti break down the anthropogenic and natural forcings into their
individual components to quantify the amount of warming caused by each since the 1850s (Figure 7b), 1950s (7c), and projected
from 2000 to 2050 using the IPCC SRES A2 emissions scenario as business-as-usual (7d). Solar and volcanic activity are the main
natural forcings included in the Huber and Knutti study. Both are slightly positive since 1850, and account for approximately 0.2°C
of the observed 0.8°C surface warming over that period. Since 1950, the volcanic forcing has been negative due to a few significant
eruptions, and has offset the modestly positive solar forcing, such that the net natural external forcing contribution to global
warming over the past 50 years is approximately zero (more specifically, the authors estimate the natural forcing contribution since
1950 at -10 to +13%, with a most likely value of 1%). The authors also note that they chose a reconstruction
with high variability in solar irradiance, so if anything they may have overestimated the natural
contribution to the observed warming. "Even for a reconstruction with high variability in total irradiance, solar
forcing contributed only about 0.07°C (0.03-0.13°C) to the warming since 1950." Other Attribution Studies A number of studies
have used a variety of statistical and physical approaches to determine the contribution of greenhouse gases and other effects to the
observed global warming, like Lean & Rind, Foster & Rahmstorf, and Huber & Knutti. And like those studies, they find a
relatively small solar contribution to global warming, particularly in recent decades (Figure 8). It's
not the Sun As illustrated above, neither direct nor indirect solar influences can explain a
significant amount of the global warming over the past century, and certainly not
over the past 30 years. As Ray Pierrehumbert said about solar warming, “That’s a
coffin with so many nails in it already that the hard part is finding a place to
hammer in a new one.”
Negative correlation between solar activity and warming.
Cook 12 - Global Change Institute, University of Queensland, Australia (John, “Solar Activity and Climate: Is the Sun Causing
Global Warming?”, 12/17/12; < http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warmingintermediate.htm>)//Beddow
As supplier of almost all the energy in Earth's climate, the sun has a strong influence on climate. A comparison of sun and climate
over the past 1150 years found temperatures closely match solar activity (Usoskin 2005). However, after 1975,
temperatures rose while solar activity showed little to no long-term trend. This led the study to conclude,
"...during these last 30 years the solar total irradiance, solar UV irradiance and cosmic ray flux has not shown any
significant secular trend, so that at least this most recent warming episode must have
another source." In fact, a number of independent measurements of solar activity indicate the
sun has shown a slight cooling trend since 1960, over the same period that global
temperatures have been warming. Over the last 35 years of global warming, sun and
climate have been moving in opposite directions. An analysis of solar trends concluded
that the sun has actually contributed a slight cooling influence in recent decades (Lockwood 2008).
Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) used multiple linear regression to quantify and remove the effects of the El Niño Southern Oscillation
(ENSO) and solar and volcanic activity from the surface and lower troposphere temperature data. They found that from 1979 to
2010, solar activity had a very slight cooling effect of between -0.014 and -0.023°C per decade,
depending on the data set (Table 1, Figure 2). Like Foster and Rahmstorf, Lean and Rind (2008) performed a multiple linear
regression on the temperature data, and found that while solar activity can account for about 11% of the global
warming from 1889 to 2006, it can only account for 1.6% of the warming from 1955 to 2005,
and had a slight cooling effect (-0.004°C per decade) from 1979 to 2005. A number of studies have used a
variety of statistical and physical approaches to determine the contribution of greenhouse gases and other effects to the observed
global warming, like Lean & Rind and Foster & Rahmstorf. And like those studies, they find a relatively small solar
contribution to global warming, particularly in recent decades (Figure 3).
Arctic Tribes
Warming destroys Arctic tribes
Epa 13 (Environmental Protection Agency “Alaska Impacts & Adaptation”, 6/21/2013
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/impacts-adaptation/alaska.html)
People in Alaska are already feeling the impact of climate change. In many parts of the state, the
changing climate has negatively affected the livelihood, settlements, and well-being of residents.
Alaska Natives fish in ocean and inland waters. They also hunt animals such as polar bears, walruses,
seals, and caribou for food. As climate change reduces these species' critical habitats, declines in their
population threaten not only the livelihood of Alaska Natives, but also their cultural and social
identity. As the supply of fish and game declines, hunters and fishers are forced to seek alternative
sources of food. Along Alaska's northwestern coast, increased coastal erosion is causing some
shorelines to retreat at rates averaging tens of feet per year. [2] Here, melting sea ice has reduced
natural coastal protection. In Shishmaref, Kivalina, and other Alaska Native Villages, erosion has caused
homes to collapse into the sea. Severe erosion has forced some Alaska Native Villages' populations to
relocate in order to protect lives and property.
Extinction
Best methodology shows positive feedbacks will push us past the
tipping point – causes extinction.
Guterl 12 – Executive Editor of Scientific American, expert in Climate and Environment, Science Policy, citing James Hanson,
a NASA scientist (Fred, “Climate Armageddon: How the World’s Weather Could Quickly Run Amok”, 5/25/12; <
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-worlds-weather-could-quickly-run-amok>)//Beddow
The world has warmed since those heady days of Gaia, and scientists have grown gloomier in
their assessment of the state of the world's climate. NASA climate scientist James Hanson has warned of a
"Venus effect," in which runaway warming turns Earth into an uninhabitable desert,
with a surface temperature high enough to melt lead, sometime in the next few centuries. Even
Hanson, though, is beginning to look downright optimistic compared to a new crop of climate scientists, who fret that
things could head south as quickly as a handful of years, or even months, if we're particularly
unlucky. Ironically, some of them are intellectual offspring of Lovelock, the original optimist gone sour. The true gloomsters are
scientists who look at climate through the lens of "dynamical systems," a mathematics that
describes things that tend to change suddenly and are difficult to predict. It is the mathematics
of the tipping point—the moment at which a "system" that has been changing slowly and
predictably will suddenly "flip." The colloquial example is the straw that breaks that camel's back. Or you can also think
of it as a ship that is stable until it tips too far in one direction and then capsizes. In this view, Earth's climate is, or
could soon be, ready to capsize, causing sudden, perhaps catastrophic, changes. And
once it capsizes, it could be next to impossible to right it again. The idea that climate behaves like a dynamical
system addresses some of the key shortcomings of the conventional view of climate change—the
view that looks at the planet as a whole, in terms of averages. A dynamical systems approach, by
contrast, consider climate as a sum of many different parts, each with its own properties, all of
them interdependent in ways that are hard to predict. One of the most productive scientists in applying
dynamical systems theory to climate is Tim Lenton at the University of East Anglia in England. Lenton is a Lovelockian two
generations removed— his mentors were mentored by Lovelock. "We are looking quite hard at past data and observational data that
can tell us something," says Lenton. "Classical case studies in which you've seen abrupt changes in climate data. For example, in the
Greenland ice-core records, you're seeing climate jump. And the end of the Younger Dryas," about fifteen thousand years ago, "you
get a striking climate change." So far, he says, nobody has found a big reason for such an abrupt change in these past events—no
meteorite or volcano or other event that is an obvious cause—which suggests that perhaps something about the way these
climate shifts occur simply makes them sudden. Lenton is mainly interested in the future. He has tried to look for
things that could possibly change suddenly and drastically even though nothing obvious may trigger them. He's come up with
a short list of nine tipping points—nine weather systems, regional in scope, that could make a
rapid transition from one state to another.
Warming is anthropogenic and causes extinction – best evidence
proves.
Morgan 09 – professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (Dennis Ray, “World on Fire: Two Scenarios of the
Destruction of Human Civilization and the Possible Extinction of the Human Race”, 2009)//Beddow
As horrifying as the scenario of human extinction by sudden, fast-burning nuclear fire may
seem, the one consolation is that this future can be avoided within a relatively short period of
time if responsible world leaders change Cold War thinking to move away from aggressive wars
over natural resources and towards the eventual dismantlement of most if not all nuclear
weapons. On the other hand, another scenario of human extinction by fire is one that may not so
easily be reversed within a short period of time because it is not a fast-burning fire; rather, a slow
burning fire is gradually heating up the planet as industrial civilization progresses and develops globally. This gradual process and
course is long-lasting; thus it cannot easily be changed, even if responsible world leaders change their thinking about ‘‘progress’’ and
industrial development based on the burning of fossil fuels. The way that global warming will impact humanity in the future has
often been depicted through the analogy of the proverbial frog in a pot of water who does not realize that the temperature of the
water is gradually rising. Instead of trying to escape, the frog tries to adjust to the gradual temperature change; finally, the heat of
the water sneaks up on it until it is debilitated. Though it finally realizes its predicament and attempts to escape, it is too late; its
feeble attempt is to no avail— and the frog dies. Whether this fable can actually be applied to frogs in heated water or not is
irrelevant; it still serves as a comparable scenario of how the slow burning fire of global warming may eventually
lead to a runaway condition and take humanity by surprise. Unfortunately, by the time the
politicians finally all agree with the scientific consensus that global warming is
indeed human caused, its development could be too advanced to arrest ; the poor frog has
become too weak and enfeebled to get himself out of hot water. The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) was
established in 1988 by the WorldMeteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environmental Programme to ‘‘assess
on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to
understanding the scientific basis of risk of humaninduced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and
mitigation.’’[16]. Since then, it has given assessments and reports every six or seven years. Thus far, it has given four assessments.13
With all prior assessments came attacks fromsome parts of the scientific community, especially by industry scientists, to attempt to
prove that the theory had no basis in planetary history and present-day reality; nevertheless, as more and more research
continually provided concrete and empirical evidence to confirm the global
warming hypothesis, that it is indeed human-caused, mostly due to the burning of
fossil fuels, the scientific consensus grew stronger that human induced global warming
is verifiable. As a matter of fact, according to Bill McKibben [17], 12 years of ‘‘impressive scientific research’’ strongly confirms
the 1995 report ‘‘that humans had grown so large in numbers and especially in appetite for energy that they were now damaging the
most basic of the earth’s systems—the balance between incoming and outgoing solar energy’’; ‘‘. . . their findings have essentially
been complementary to the 1995 report – a constant strengthening of the simple basic truth that humans were burning too much
fossil fuel.’’ [17]. Indeed, 12 years later, the 2007 report not only confirms global warming, with a stronger scientific consensus that
the slow burn is ‘‘very likely’’ human caused, but it also finds that the ‘‘amount of carbon in the atmosphere is now
increasing at a faster rate even than before’’ and the temperature increases would be
‘‘considerably higher than they have been so far were it not for the blanket of soot and other pollution that is
temporarily helping to cool the planet.’’ [17]. Furthermore, almost ‘‘everything frozen on earth is melting. Heavy
rainfalls are becoming more common since the air is warmer and therefore holds more water than cold air, and ‘cold days, cold
nights and frost have become less frequent, while hot days, hot nights, and heat waves have become more frequent.’’ [17]. Unless
drastic action is taken soon, the average global temperature is predicted to rise about 5 degrees
this century, but it could rise as much as 8 degrees. As has already been evidenced in recent
years, the rise in global temperature is melting the Arctic sheets. This runaway polar melting will
inflict great damage upon coastal areas, which could be much greater than what has been
previously forecasted. However, what is missing in the IPCC report, as dire as it may seem, is sufficient emphasis on the less
likely but still plausible worst case scenarios, which could prove to have the most devastating, catastrophic consequences for the
long-term future of human civilization. In other words, the IPCC report places too much emphasis on a linear progression that does
not take sufficient account of the dynamics of systems theory, which leads to a fundamentally different premise regarding the
relationship between industrial civilization and nature.
Warming and Co2 causes extinction rapidly no risk of turns
Leslie 10 (John Leslie “The Risk that Humans Will Soon Be Extinct” Philosophy Volume 85 / Issue 04 / October 2010, pp 447 - 463)
Cambridge Journals
Look next at the possibility of utterly disastrous climate change, a¶ greenhouse-effect runaway. The
geological record reveals that major¶ jumps in temperature sometimes happen quite quickly. Now, to get¶ the consensus needed for
persuading the politicians in Rio in 1992¶ the International Panel on Climate Change disregarded worst-case¶ predictions and latest-available
evidence. It even dealt with biological¶ feedback loops in just one sentence:‘Biological
feedbacks have not yet¶ been taken
into account.’Has the Panel since changed its ways? There¶ is little sign of it. Politicians demand findings that are very
uncontroversial and the IPCC, remember, was created to provide exactly such¶ findings. But scenarios involving runaway overheating are
readily¶ available,
biological feedback loops often playing crucial roles. For¶ instance: (i) Ocean waters warm up,
becoming less able to absorb¶ man-made carbon dioxide, the factor chiefly responsible for the¶ change; (ii) waters
rich in nutrients rise to the warmed sea surface¶ less often so that phytoplankton grow more slowly,
absorb less¶ carbon dioxide and generate less dimethyl sulphide, a substance¶ which encourages the
birth of the clouds that cool us in daytime;¶ (iii) many phytoplankton die because carbon dioxide has
acidified¶ the oceans; (iv) hotter weather increases production of carbon¶ dioxide by plants and soil
microbes; (v) tundra melt and peat bogs¶ dry out, producing yet more carbon dioxide and vast amounts
of¶ another greenhouse gas, methane, molecule for molecule perhaps¶ thirty times as powerful; (vi)
resultant changes in high altitude¶ clouds make them trap more heat; (vii) drought then kills
vegetation,¶ returning carbon dioxide to the atmosphere; (viii) next, the ravages of¶ methane and other
greenhouse gases deplete the hydroxyls which are¶ so important in destroying those gases; (ix) there
follows a retreat of¶ sea ice so that less sunlight is reflected back into space; (x) heating of¶ the oceans thereupon releases
trillions of tons of methane which are at¶ present locked up in the clathrates of the continental
shelves; (xi) the¶ new heat produces much more water vapour, an extremely important¶ greenhouse
gas, so that a greenhouse runaway occurs. For advanced¶ life forms, Earth becomes uninhabitable.
Extinction
Guardian 10 ( Guardian News “Did Deepwater methane hydrates cause the BP Gulf explosion?”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/20/deepwater-methane-hydrates-bp-gulf, Thursday 20 May 2010)
The vast deepwater methane hydrate deposits of the Gulf of Mexico are an open secret in big energy
circles. They represent the most tantalizing new frontier of unconventional energy — a potential source of hydrocarbon fuel thought to be
twice as large as all the petroleum deposits ever known.¶ For the oil and gas industry, the substances are also known to be the primary hazard
when drilling for deepwater oil.¶ Methane hydrates are volatile compounds — natural
gas compressed into molecular cages
of ice. They are stable in the extreme cold and crushing weight of deepwater, but are extremely dangerous when they build up
inside the drill column of a well . If destabilized by heat or a decrease in pressure, methane hydrates can quickly expand
to 164 times their volume.¶ Survivors of the BP rig explosion told interviewers that right before the April 20 blast, workers had
decreased the pressure in the drill column and applied heat to set the cement seal around the wellhead. Then a quickly expanding
bubble of methane gas shot up the drill column before exploding on the platform on the ocean's
surface.¶ Even a solid steel pipe has little chance against a 164-fold expansion of volume — something
that would render a man six feet six inches tall suddenly the height of the Eiffel Tower.¶ Scientists are well
aware of the awesome power of these strange hydrocarbons . A sudden large scale release of methane hydrates is
believed to have caused a mass extinction 55 million years ago. Among planners concerned with
mega-disasters, their sudden escape is considered to be a threat comparable to an asteroid strike or
nuclear war. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a Livermore, Ca.-based weapons design center, reports that when released
on a large scale, methane hydrates can even cause tsunamis.¶ So it is not surprising to anyone who knows about the physics
of these compounds that the Deepwater Horizon rig was lost like a waterfly crumpled by a force of nature scientists are still just getting to
know.
Melting sea ice causes massive decrease in biodiversity
Lefeber 8/24/2012 (Rene DOCTOR CHAIR IN INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL
LAW THE THE UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM Polar Warming: An Opportune
Inconveniencehttp://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2151241
It is expected that polar warming will result in a decrease of biological diversity of
the Polar Regions. Together with the melting of sea ice, not only the habitats of
organisms living on sea ice, such as seals and polar bears, will be melting away, but
also of organisms living at the underside of the sea ice. Animal and plant species
will become extinct if the non-sustainable use of such species has not already
produced such extinction. The fragile ecosystems of the Polar Regions will be
thrown off balance and may not be preserved
***AT: ADV CPS
AT: Iron Fertilization
Doesn’t solve ocean acidification and releases methane.
IPCC 07 – (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “Ocean Fertilization and Other Geo-Engineering Options”, 2007;
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg3/en/ch11s11-2-2.html)//Beddow
Iron fertilization of the oceans may be a strategy for removing CO2 from the atmosphere. The
idea is that it stimulates the growth of phytoplankton and therefore sequesters CO2 in the form
of particulate organic carbon (POC). There have been eleven field studies in different ocean regions with the primary
aim of examining the impact of iron as a limiting nutrient for phytoplankton by the addition of small quantities (1–10 tonnes) of iron
sulphate to the surface ocean. In addition, commercial tests are being pursued with the combined (and conflicting) aims of
increasing ocean carbon sequestration and productivity. It should be noted, however, that iron addition will only
stimulate phytoplankton growth in ~30% of the oceans (the Southern Ocean, the equatorial Pacific
and the Sub-Arctic Pacific), where iron depletion prevails. Only two experiments to date (Buesseler and Boyd, 2003) have reported
on the second phase, the sinking and vertical transport of the increased phytoplankton biomass to depths below the main
thermocline (>120m). The efficiency of sequestration of the phytoplankton carbon is low
(<10%), with the biomass being largely recycled back to CO2 in the upper water
column (Boyd et al., 2004). This suggests that the field-study estimates of the actual carbon sequestered per unit iron (and per
dollar) are over-estimates. The cost of large-scale and long-term fertilization will also be
offset by CO2 release/emission during the acquisition, transportation and release
of large volumes of iron in remote oceanic regions. Potential negative effects of
iron fertilization include the increased production of methane and nitrous oxide,
deoxygenation of intermediate waters and changes in phytoplankton community
composition that may cause toxic blooms and/or promote changes further along
the food chain. None of these effects have been directly identified in experiments to date, partly due to the time and space
constraints.
***WARMING DEFENSE
No Warming
No anthropogenic warming and no impact – scientific consensus
flows our way.
Taylor 2/13 – Forbes magazine contributor on energy and environmental issues, citing a survey published by Organization
Studies, a peer-reviewed academic journal (James, “Peer-Reviewed Survey Finds Majority of Scientists Skeptical of Global Warming
Crisis”, 2/13/13; < http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/02/13/peer-reviewed-survey-finds-majority-of-scientistsskeptical-of-global-warming-crisis/>)//Beddow
It is becoming clear that not only do many scientists dispute the asserted global warming crisis,
but these skeptical scientists may indeed form a scientific consensus. Don’t look now, but
maybe a scientific consensus exists concerning global warming after all. Only 36 percent of geoscientists and
engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis, according to a survey
reported in the peer-reviewed Organization Studies. By contrast, a strong majority of the
1,077 respondents believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global
warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem. The
survey results show geoscientists (also known as earth scientists) and engineers hold similar views as meteorologists. Two recent
surveys of meteorologists (summarized here and here) revealed similar skepticism of alarmist
global warming claims. According to the newly published survey of geoscientists and engineers, merely 36 percent of
respondents fit the “Comply with Kyoto” model. The scientists in this group “express the strong belief that climate change is
happening, that it is not a normal cycle of nature, and humans are the main or central cause.” The authors of the survey report,
however, note that the overwhelming majority of scientists fall within four other models,
each of which is skeptical of alarmist global warming claims. The survey finds that 24
percent of the scientist respondents fit the “Nature Is Overwhelming” model. “In their diagnostic
framing, they believe that changes to the climate are natural, normal cycles of the
Earth.” Moreover, “they strongly disagree that climate change poses any significant
public risk and see no impact on their personal lives.” Another group of scientists fit the “Fatalists”
model. These scientists, comprising 17 percent of the respondents, “diagnose climate change as both human- and naturally caused.
‘Fatalists’ consider climate change to be a smaller public risk with little impact on their personal
life. They are skeptical that the scientific debate is settled regarding the IPCC modeling.” These
scientists are likely to ask, “How can anyone take action if research is biased?” The next largest group of scientists, comprising 10
percent of respondents, fit the “Economic Responsibility” model. These scientists “diagnose climate change as being natural or
human caused. More than any other group, they underscore that the ‘real’ cause of climate change is unknown as
nature is forever changing and uncontrollable. Similar to the ‘nature is overwhelming’
adherents, they disagree that climate change poses any significant public risk and see no impact
on their personal life. They are also less likely to believe that the scientific debate is settled and that the IPCC modeling is
accurate. In their prognostic framing, they point to the harm the Kyoto Protocol and all regulation will do to the economy.” The final
group of scientists, comprising 5 percent of the respondents, fit the “Regulation Activists” model. These scientists “diagnose climate
change as being both human- and naturally caused, posing a moderate public risk, with only slight impact on their personal life.”
Moreover, “They are also skeptical with regard to the scientific debate being settled and are the most indecisive whether IPCC
modeling is accurate.” Taken together, these four skeptical groups numerically blow away the 36 percent of
scientists who believe global warming is human caused and a serious concern. The next largest group
of scientists, comprising 10 percent of respondents, fit the “Economic Responsibility” model. These scientists “diagnose climate
change as being natural or human caused. More than any other group, they underscore that the ‘real’ cause of climate change is
unknown as nature is forever changing and uncontrollable. Similar to the ‘nature is overwhelming’ adherents, they disagree that
climate change poses any significant public risk and see no impact on their personal life. They are also less likely to believe that the
scientific debate is settled and that the IPCC modeling is accurate. In their prognostic framing, they point to the harm the Kyoto
Protocol and all regulation will do to the economy.” The final group of scientists, comprising 5 percent of the respondents, fit the
“Regulation Activists” model. These scientists “diagnose climate change as being both human- and naturally caused, posing a
moderate public risk, with only slight impact on their personal life.” Moreover, “They are also skeptical with regard to the scientific
debate being settled and are the most indecisive whether IPCC modeling is accurate.” Taken together, these four skeptical groups
numerically blow away the 36 percent of scientists who believe global warming is human caused and a serious concern. One
interesting aspect of this new survey is the unmistakably alarmist bent of the survey takers. They
frequently use terms such as “denier” to describe scientists who are skeptical of an asserted
global warming crisis, and they refer to skeptical scientists as “speaking against climate science”
rather than “speaking against asserted climate projections.” Accordingly, alarmists will have a hard
time arguing the survey is biased or somehow connected to the ‘vast right-wing climate denial
machine.’ Another interesting aspect of this new survey is that it reports on the beliefs of scientists themselves rather than
bureaucrats who often publish alarmist statements without polling their member scientists. We now have meteorologists,
geoscientists and engineers all reporting that they are skeptics of an asserted global warming
crisis, yet the bureaucrats of these organizations frequently suck up to the media and suck up to government grant providers by
trying to tell us the opposite of what their scientist members actually believe. People who look behind the self-serving statements by
global warming alarmists about an alleged “consensus” have always known that no such alarmist consensus exists among scientists.
Now that we have access to hard surveys of scientists themselves, it is becoming clear that not only do many scientists dispute the
asserted global warming crisis, but these skeptical scientists may indeed form a scientific consensus. Taken
together, these four skeptical groups numerically blow away the 36 percent of scientists who
believe global warming is human caused and a serious concern.
Global warming is absurd and has no impact – empirics and flawed
methods.
Deming 11 –geophysicist and associate professor at the University of Oklahoma (David, “Why I deny Global Warming”,
10/19/11; <http://www.lewrockwell.com/2011/10/david-deming/why-i-deny-global-warming/>)//Beddow
I’m a denier for several reasons. There is no substantive evidence that the planet
has warmed
significantly or that any significant warming will occur in the future. If any
warming does occur, it likely will be concentrated at higher latitudes and therefore
be beneficial. Climate research has largely degenerated into pathological science, and the coverage of global
warming in the media is tendentious to the point of being fraudulent. Anyone who is an honest and
competent scientist must be a denier. Have you ever considered how difficult it is to take the temperature of the planet Earth? What
temperature will you measure? The air? The surface of the Earth absorbs more than twice as much incident heat from the Sun than
the air. But if you measure the temperature of the surface, what surface are you going to measure? The solid Earth or the oceans?
There is twice as much water as land on Earth. If you decide to measure water temperature, at what depth will you take the
measurements? How will the time scale on which the deep ocean mixes with the shallow affect your measurements? And how, pray
tell, will you determine what the average water temperature was for the South Pacific Ocean a hundred years ago? How will you
combine air, land, and sea temperature measurements? Even if you use only meteorological measurements of air temperature, how
will you compensate for changes in latitude, elevation, and land use? Determining a mean planetary temperature is
not straightforward, but an extremely complicated problem. Even the best data are suspect.
Anthony Watts and his colleagues have surveyed 82.5 percent of stations in the U.S. Historical Climatology Network. They have
found — shockingly — that over 70 percent of these stations are likely to be contaminated by errors
greater than 2 deg C [3.6 deg F]. Of the remaining stations, 21.5 percent have inherent errors
greater than 1 deg C. The alleged degree of global warming over the past 150 years is less than 1
deg C. Yet even in a technologically advanced country like the US, the inherent error in over 90
percent of the surveyed meteorological stations is greater than the putative signal. And these
errors are not random, but systematically reflect a warming bias related to
urbanization. Watts has documented countless instances of air temperature sensors located next to air conditioning vents or
in the middle of asphalt parking lots. A typical scenario is that a temperature sensor that was in the middle of a pasture a hundred
years ago is now surrounded by a concrete jungle. Urbanization has been a unidirectional process. It is entirely plausible — even
likely — that all of the temperature rise that has been inferred from the data is an
artifact that reflects the growth of urban heat islands. The “denier” is portrayed as a person who
refuses to accept the plain evidence of his senses. But in fact it is the alarmist who doesn’t know what they are talking about. The
temperature of the Earth and how it has varied over the past 150 years is poorly constrained. The person who thinks otherwise does
so largely because they have no comprehension of the science. Most of these people have never done science or thought about the
inherent difficulties and uncertainties involved. And what is “global warming” anyway? As long ago as the fifth century BC, Socrates
pointed out that intelligible definitions are a necessary precursor to meaningful discussions. The definition of the term “global
warming” shifts with the context of the discussion. If you deny global warming, then you have denied the existence of the greenhouse
effect, a reproducible phenomenon that can be studied analytically in the laboratory. But if you oppose political action, then global
warming metamorphoses into a nightmarish and speculative planetary catastrophe. Coastal cities sink beneath a rising sea, species
suffer from wholesale extinctions, and green pastures are turned into deserts of choking hot sand. In fact, so-called “deniers” are not
“deniers” but skeptics. Skeptics do not deny the existence of the greenhouse effect. Holding all other factors constant, the mean
planetary air temperature ought to rise as the atmosphere accumulates more anthropogenic CO2. Christopher Monckton recently
reviewed the pertinent science and concluded that a doubling of CO2 should result in a temperature increase of about 1 deg C. If
this temperature increase mirrors those in the geologic past, most of it will occur
at high latitudes. These areas will become more habitable for man, plants, and
other animals. Biodiversity will increase. Growing seasons will lengthen. Why is this a
bad thing? Any temperature increase over 1 deg C for a doubling of CO2 must come from a positive feedback from water vapor.
Water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas in Earth’s atmosphere, and warm air holds more water than cold air. The theory is that
an increased concentration of water vapor in the atmosphere will lead to a positive feedback that amplifies the warming from CO2 by
as much as a factor of three to five. But this is nothing more that speculation. Water vapor also leads to cloud
formation. Clouds have a cooling effect. At the current time, no one knows if the feedback from water vapor will be
positive or negative. Global warming predictions cannot be tested with mathematical models. It is
impossible to validate computer models of complex natural systems. The only way to
corroborate such models is to compare model predictions with what will happen in a hundred
years. And one such result by itself won’t be significant because of the possible compounding effects of other variables in the
climate system. The experiment will have to repeated over several one-hundred year cycles. In other words, the theory of
catastrophic global warming cannot be tested or empirically corroborated in a
human time frame. It is hardly conclusive to argue that models are correct because they have reproduced past
temperatures. I’m sure they have. General circulation models have so many degrees of freedom that it is possible to endlessly tweak
them until the desired result is obtained. Hindsight is always 20-20. This tells us exactly nothing about a model’s ability to
accurately predict what will happen in the future. The entire field of climate science and its coverage in the media is tendentious to
the point of being outright fraudulent. Why is it that every media report on CO2 — an invisible gas — is invariably accompanied by a
photograph of a smokestack emitting particulate matter? Even the cover of Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, shows a
smokestack. Could it be that its difficult to get people worked up about an invisible, odorless gas that is an integral component of the
photosynthetic cycle? A gas that is essential to most animal and plant life on Earth? A gas that is emitted by their own bodies
through respiration? So you have to deliberately mislead people by showing pictures of smoke to them. Showing one thing when
you’re talking about another is fraud. If the case for global warming alarmism is so settled, so conclusive, so irrefutable…why is it
necessary to repeatedly resort to fraud? A few years ago it was widely reported that the increased concentration of carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere would cause poison ivy to grow faster. But of course carbon dioxide causes almost all plants to
grow faster. And nearly all of these plants have beneficial human uses. Carbon dioxide
fertilizes hundreds or thousands of human food sources. More CO2 means trees
grow faster. So carbon dioxide promotes reforestation and biodiversity. Its good
for the environment. But none of this was reported. Instead, the media only reported that global warming makes poison
ivy grow faster. And this is but one example of hundreds or thousands of such misleading reports. If sea ice in the Arctic
diminishes, it is cited as irrefutable proof of global warming. But if sea ice in the Antarctic
increases, it is ignored. Even cold weather events are commonly invoked as evidence for global
warming. People living in the future will look back and wonder how we could have been so delusional. For the past few years I
have remained silent concerning the Climategate emails. But what they revealed is what many of us
already knew was going on: global warming research has largely degenerated into
what is known as pathological science, a “process of wishful data interpretation.”
When I testified before the US Senate in 2006, I stated that a major climate researcher told me in 1995 that “we have to get rid
of the Medieval Warm Period.” The existence and global nature of the Medieval Warm Period
had been substantiated by literally hundreds of research articles published over decades. But it
had to be erased from history for ideological reasons. A few years later the infamous “hockey stick”
appeared. The “hockey stick” was a revisionist attempt to rewrite the temperature history of the last
thousand years. It has been discredited as being deeply flawed. In one Climategate email, a supposed
climate scientist admitted to “hiding the decline.” In other words, hiding data that tended to
disprove his ideological agenda. Another email described how alarmists would try to keep critical
manuscripts from being published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. One of them wrote, we’ll
“keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!” Gee. If the climate
science that validates global warming is so unequivocal, why is it necessary to work behind the scenes to suppress dissent? You “doth
protest too much.” As described in my book, Science and Technology in World History: The Ancient World and Classical Civilization,
systematic science began with the invocation of naturalism by Greek philosophers and Hippocratic physicians c. 600-400 BC. But
the critical attitude adopted by the Greeks was as important as naturalism. Students were not only allowed to criticize their teachers,
but were encouraged to do so. From its beginnings in Greek natural philosophy, science has been an idealistic and dispassionate
search for truth. As Plato explained, anyone who could point out a mistake “shall carry off the palm, not as an enemy, but as a
friend.” This is one reason that scientists enjoy so much respect. The public assumes that a scientist’s pursuit of truth is
unencumbered by political agendas. But science does not come easy to men. “Science,” George Sarton reminded us, “is a joykiller.”
The proper conduct of science requires a high degree of intellectual discipline and rigor. Scientists are supposed to use multiple
working hypotheses and sort through these by the processes of corroboration and falsification. The most valuable evidence is that
which tends to falsify or disprove a theory. A scientist, by the very definition of his activity, must be skeptical. A scientist engaged in
a dispassionate search for truth elevates the critical — he does not suppress it. Knowledge begins with skepticism and ends with
conceit. Finally, I’m happy to be known as a “denier” because the label of “denier” says nothing about me, but everything about the
person making the charge. Scientific theories are never denied or believed, they are only corroborated or falsified. Scientific
knowledge, by its very nature, is provisional and subject to revision. The provisional nature of scientific knowledge is a necessary
consequence of the epistemological basis of science. Science is based on observation. We never have all the data. As our body of data
grows, our theories and ideas must necessarily evolve. Anyone who thinks scientific knowledge is final and complete must
necessarily endorse as a corollary the absurd proposition that the process of history has stopped. A scientific theory cannot be
“denied.” Only a belief can be denied. The person who uses the word “denier” thus reveals that they hold global warming as a belief,
not a scientific theory. Beliefs are the basis of revealed religion. Revelations cannot be corroborated or studied in the laboratory, so
religions are based on dogmatic beliefs conservatively held. Religions tend to be closed systems of belief that reject criticism. But the
sciences are open systems of knowledge that welcome criticism. I’m a scientist, and therefore I must happily confess to being a
denier.
No warming – modeling fails, cooling now, no tipping point, causalcorrelative mistakes, resilient Arctic AND warming strengthens the
biosphere.
Hayden 09 – Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Connecticut, editor of The Energy Advocate, speaker at the
International Conference on Climate Change (Howard C., “Physicist Howard Hayden’s One-Letter Disproof of Global Warming
Claims”, 10/29/12; < http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/41453.html>)//Beddow
It has been often said that the “science is settled” on the issue of CO2 and climate. Let me put this
claim to rest with a simple one-letter proof that it is false. The letter is s, the one that changes model into
models. If the science were settled, there would be precisely one model, and it would be in agreement with measurements.
Alternatively, one may ask which one of the twenty-some models settled the science so that all the rest could be discarded along with
the research funds that have kept those models alive. We can take this further. Not a single climate model
predicted the current cooling phase. If the science were settled, the model (singular) would have predicted it.
Let me next address the horror story that we are approaching (or have passed) a “tipping point.”
Anybody who has worked with amplifiers knows about tipping points. The output “goes to the rail.” Not
only that, but it stays there. That’s the official worry coming from the likes of James Hansen (of NASAGISS) and Al Gore. But therein
lies the proof that we are nowhere near a tipping point. The earth, it seems, has seen
times when the CO2 concentration was up to 8,000 ppm, and that did not lead to a
tipping point. If it did, we would not be here talking about it. In fact, seen on the long scale, the CO2
concentration in the present cycle of glacials (ca. 200 ppm) and interglacials (ca. 300-400 ppm)
is lower than it has been for the last 300 million years. Global-warming alarmists tell us that the rising CO2
concentration is (A) anthropogenic and (B) leading to global warming. (A) CO2 concentration has risen and fallen in
the past with no help from mankind. The present rise began in the 1700s, long before
humans could have made a meaningful contribution. Alarmists have failed to ask, let alone answer,
what the CO2 level would be today if we had never burned any fuels. They simply assume that it would be the “pre-industrial” value.
The solubility of CO2 in water decreases as water warms, and increases as water cools. The warming of the earth since
the Little Ice Age has thus caused the oceans to emit CO2 into the atmosphere. (B) The first principle of
causality is that the cause has to come before the effect. The historical record shows that climate changes
precede CO2 changes. How, then, can one conclude that CO2 is responsible for the current warming? Nobody doubts
that CO2 has some greenhouse effect, and nobody doubts that CO2 concentration is increasing. But what would we have to fear if
CO2 and temperature actually increased? A warmer world is a better world. Look at weather-related death
rates in winter and in summer, and the case is overwhelming that warmer is better. The higher
the CO2 levels, the more vibrant is the biosphere, as numerous experiments in
greenhouses have shown. But a quick trip to the museum can make that case in spades. Those huge dinosaurs could
not exist anywhere on the earth today because the land is not productive enough. CO2 is plant food, pure and simple.
CO2 is not pollution by any reasonable definition. A warmer world begets more precipitation. All computer
models predict a smaller temperature gradient between the poles and the equator. Necessarily,
this would mean fewer and less violent storms. The melting point of ice is 0 ºC in
Antarctica, just as it is everywhere else. The highest recorded temperature at the South Pole is –
14 ºC, and the lowest is –117 ºC. How, pray, will a putative few degrees of warming
melt all the ice and inundate Florida, as is claimed by the warming alarmists? Consider
the change in vocabulary that has occurred. The term global warming has given way to the term climate change, because the former
is not supported by the data. The latter term, climate change, admits of all kinds of illogical attributions. If it warms up, that’s
climate change. If it cools down, ditto. Any change whatsoever can be said by alarmists to be proof of climate change. In a way, we
have been here before. Lord Kelvin “proved” that the earth could not possibly be as old as the geologists said. He “proved” it using
the conservation of energy. What he didn’t know was that nuclear energy, not gravitation, provides the internal heat of the sun and
the earth. Similarly, the global-warming alarmists have “proved” that CO2 causes global warming. Except when it doesn’t. To put it
fairly but bluntly, the global-warming alarmists have relied on a pathetic version of science in which computer models take
precedence over data, and numerical averages of computer outputs are believed to be able to predict the future climate. It would be a
travesty if the EPA were to countenance such nonsense.
Not anthro – prefer empirics to flawed models.
Evans 07 - mathematician, computer and electrical engineer and head of Science Speak writing for Ludwig von Mises Institute
of Economics (David M.W., “I Was On the Global Warming Gravy Train”, 5/28/07; http://mises.org/daily/2571)//Beddow
But starting in about 2000, the last three of the four pieces of evidence above fell away. Using the same point numbers as above:
Better data shows that from 1940 to 1975 the earth cooled while atmospheric carbon
increased. That 35 year non-correlation might eventually be explained by global dimming, only discovered in about 2003. The
temporal resolution of the ice core data improved. By 2004 we knew that in past warming events, the
temperature increases generally started about 800 years before the rises in
atmospheric carbon. Causality does not run in the direction I had assumed in 1999
— it runs the opposite way! It took several hundred years of warming for the oceans to give
off more of their carbon. This proves that there is a cause of global warming other than
atmospheric carbon. And while it is possible that rising atmospheric carbon in these past
warmings then went on to cause more warming ("amplification" of the initial warming), the ice
core data neither proves nor disproves this hypothesis. There is now a credible alternative suspect. In October
2006 Henrik Svensmark showed experimentally that cosmic rays cause cloud formation. Clouds have a net cooling effect, but for the
last three decades there have been fewer clouds than normal because the sun's magnetic field, which shields us from cosmic rays, has
been stronger than usual. So the earth heated up. It's too early to judge what fraction of global warming is caused by cosmic rays.
There is now no observational evidence that global warming is caused by carbon
emissions. You would think that in over 20 years of intense investigation we would have found something. For example,
greenhouse warming due to carbon emissions should warm the upper atmosphere faster than the lower atmosphere — but until
2006 the data showed the opposite, and thus that the greenhouse effect was not occurring! In 2006 better data allowed that the
effect might be occurring, except in the tropics. The only current "evidence" for blaming carbon emissions are
scientific models (and the fact that there are few contradictory observations). Historically,
science has not progressed by calculations and models, but by repeatable observations. Some
theories held by science authorities have turned out to be spectacularly wrong: heavier-than-air flight is impossible, the sun orbits
the earth, etc. For excellent reasons, we have much more confidence in observations by several independent parties than in models
produced by a small set of related parties!
Models Bad
97% of climatologists may agree with you, but 98% of their data is
wrong.
Taylor 7/13 - managing editor of Environment and Climate News, senior fellow at the Heartland Institute, environmentalist
JD from Syracuse University (James M., “IPCC Lead Author Says Climate Models are Failing”, 7/13/13; <
http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2013/07/13/ipcc-lead-author-says-climate-models-are-failing>)//Beddow
United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change lead author Hans von Storch told Der Spiegel that climate
models
are having a difficult time replicating the lack of global warming during the past 15 years. “So far,
no one has been able to provide a compelling answer to why climate change seems to be taking a break," said Storch. Storch said the
models say the planet should be warming much more than it has. "According to most climate models, we should
have seen temperatures rise by around 0.25 degrees Celsius (0.45 degrees Fahrenheit) over the past 10 years. That hasn't happened.
In fact, the increase over the last 15 years was just 0.06 degrees Celsius (0.11 degrees Fahrenheit) -- a value very close to zero,"
Storch told Der Spiegel. "This is a serious scientific problem that the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) will have to confront when it presents its next Assessment Report late next year. 98 Percent of
Models Wrong IPCC may have to revise its climate models to reflect real-world climate conditions, Storch noted. "At my
institute, we analyzed how often such a 15-year stagnation in global warming occurred in the simulations.
The answer was: in under 2 percent of all the times we ran the simulation. In other words, over 98
percent of forecasts show CO2 emissions as high as we have had in recent years
leading to more of a temperature increase," Storch told the magazine. "If things continue as they have
been, in five years, at the latest, we will need to acknowledge that something is fundamentally
wrong with our climate models. A 20-year pause in global warming does not occur in a single modeled scenario.
But even today, we are finding it very difficult to reconcile actual temperature trends with our
expectations," he explained. Rewards of Scientific Method “Hans von Storch is simply doing what all real scientists do: examine
the most recently available data and use it to guide your path to conclusions,” meteorologist Anthony Watts, proprietor of the
popular WattsUpWithThat.com climate science website, told Environment & Climate News. “The nature of science is to go where the
data tells you to go, not to go where you believe you should, and that is what von Storch is doing as a scientist,” Watts explained.
“Meanwhile, those who go in the direction they believe they should go—or are told to go—are continuing on like lemmings marching
to the sea, blissfully unaware that the road of science has a U-turn sign up ahead. The belief-system pileup at the U-turn will be
something to behold.” “The latest admission regarding the failure of IPCC's climate models in accounting for the stasis in the global
temperature trend for the past 15 years is really no surprise,” Cambridge, Massachusetts climate scientist Willie Soon said. “It is
merely professor Hans von Storch reporting the scientific evidence in an honest manner. The IPCC climate models have a long
history of predicting too much warming, and Storch’s observations show that is still the case. “There is a strong disconnect
between carbon dioxide emissions and global temperatures. The evidence for this is every day
becoming more difficult to deny,” Soon added.
Models fail-only historical data is predictive
Cooper et al 13 (P.J.RSchool of Agriculture, Policy and De velopment, University of Reading, UK R. D. Statistical
Services Centre, University of Reading, UK M. Noguer and J. M. Gathenya Walker Institute for Climate System R esearch, University
of Reading, UK Climate Change Adaptation Strategies in Sub-Saharan Africa: Foundations for the
Futurehttp://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/42002/InTechClimate_change_adaptation_strategies_in_sub_saharan_africa_foundations_for_the_future.pdf
Trend analyses: Given the uncertainties of climate chan ge projections (see Section 2)
and the fact that such uncertainties become greater as smaller time and spatial
scales are desired, trend analyses of existing long-term histor ical climate data
can be considered as ‘ the gold standard’ of assessing the extent of current clim
ate change at locations where adaptation research is being undertaken [36]. It is important for two reasons: Firstly, using
appropriate statistical curve fitting approaches to long-term data sets helps avoid the danger of mistaking short term trends of a
few seasons with long- term climate change. Such cycles can be relatively long-term (see Figure 3
for Bulawayo, Zimbabwe) or shorter term as il lustrated for total seasonal rainfall
at Makindu in Kenya (Figure 6) where the sh ort term wetting and drying cycles
are apparent (e.g. 1963-1966, 1974-1978, 2000-2004), but fitting a line to the complete dataset showed no significant trend
in either direction. This is in contrast to fitting curves to the maximum and minimum
temperature data from the same location
(Figure 7). Whilst the same sort of season-to-season variability in
temperature is noted, fitting a curve to the complete dataset did show a significant increase in both maximum and minimum
temperature Secondly, a great deal of research currently underway within SSA is centred on survey work that investigates farmers’
perceptions of climate risk and possible climate change and their associated coping and adaptation strategies. Having long-
term weather data at hand to compare farmers’ perceptions wi th the ‘hard’ risk
an d trend analyses of recorded weather data can be invaluable in identifying to
what extent they are correct or indeed whether perhaps they are respondi ng to
other drivers of change. This is exactly what happened in the studies in se mi-arid Kenya by [14]. Farmers perceived
that climate change had caused declinin g rainfall amounts since the early 1990’s and which they felt had resulted in declining ma
ize yields. However, trend analyses of the long-term historical rainfall data from 5 lo cations in the study ar ea showed no decline
in rainfall amounts or changes in their dist ribution patterns. Further studies, whilst confirming that district level yields had indeed
declined as perceived by farmers, showed that this was due to (i) a reduction in fertilizer use as a result of an increase in its price
following structural readjustment during the 1990’s, and (ii) migration of farmers to land with a lower yield potential due to
population pressure. It was not due to climate change. To be able to perform climate risks analysis an
d trend analysis of any long-term data record, the use of statistical packages is
imperative for researches to be able to produce real evidence of change and hence
be able to give evidence based advice.
Author Indict
Their authors are paid-off and manufacture a false consensus based
on flawed science and censorship.
Jasper 5/22 – senior editor of TNA, top investigative reporter, attendant of several international UN conferences, author
(William F., “Climate “Consensus” Con Game: Desperate Effort Before Release of UN Report”, 5/22/13; <
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/15465-climate-consensus-con-game-desperate-effort-before-release-ofun-report>)//Beddow
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is in trouble, and climate alarmists are
hoping the much-ballyhooed report by Australian activist John Cook, released last week, will convince the public to be very afraid of
global warming. The last few years have not been kind to the global-warming alarmists. In the 17th century, François, Duc de La
Rochefoucauld is credited with famously quipping, “There goes another beautiful theory about to be murdered by a brutal gang of
facts.” Unfortunately, for the climate catastrophists, their pet theory (though hardly beautiful) has
been slaughtered many times over by a brutal and relentless onslaught of facts. Unfortunately, for the
rest of us, however, the global-warming alarmists keep coming back like the undead in a B-grade horror flick. The
fanatical proponents of anthropogenic (human caused) global warming, or AGW, have
powerful supporters with deep pockets who keep resuscitating them. They have a
massive institutional base among Big Government, Big Media, Big Foundations, Big Business,
and Big Green, all of which have huge incentives to perpetuate AGW alarmism. No matter how
many times the AGW fearmongers’ predictions are shot down, they are resurrected and sent
back to frighten more voters/taxpayers into submission to global policies, taxes, and controls.
Utilizing brute power and deception, they intend to reverse de La Rochefoucauld’s prediction and see the facts murdered by their
own triumphant theory. As we have reported ("Global Warming 'Consensus': Cooking the Books") AGW activist John Cook has been
the recipient of a media promotion bonanza for his recent study claiming that 97 percent of climate scientists endorse the globalwarming alarmist position. President Obama and Big Media turned it into a claim that 97 percent of all scientists endorse the AGW
position. Both claims are wrong. Stung by numerous setbacks, the AGW lobby is desperately attempting to regain ground through a
giant bluff, hoping that their false claim of the near unanimity of all scientists will convince politicians and the public to give them
the global power and funding they crave. Among the many fatal blows the climate alarmists have sustained
along the way and managed to bounce back from are: Climategate (see here, here, here, and
here), Climategate 2, Glaciergate, Polar beargate (see here and here), Himalayagate,
Amazongate, Sea levelgate, Hockey stickgate, and more than 120 additional scandals that have
repeatedly exposed the discredited premises, fraudulent research, and faulty computer models
on which the AGW fright pedaling empire has been built. The Next Big IPCC Propaganda Push Now the United
Nations’ IPCC is getting set to release the first of three installments of its latest Assessment Report. And the powers that be are
obviously concerned that they do not have sufficient public support in the United States to get Congress to enact the type of trilliondollar transfers and the “complete transformation of the world” envisioned. The IPCC is scheduled to release its Working Group I
(WGI) report on the physical science basis of its latest Assessment in September, and they are desperate to gain support for it. In
addition to the main stumbling block of American public resistance, they are also running into problems with European countries
that once appeared to be locked in as supporters, but which are now revolting due to the crushing costs of alternative “green energy”
and their own mounting debt and fiscal problems. Many of these countries are jumping ship and now want to switch to the more
affordable natural gas that is flooding the global market, thanks to new “fracking” technology. This has the UN and the globalists in a
dither. Last September, Fatih Birol, the chief economist at the UN’s International Energy Agency, warned that “governments are
feeling more and more uncomfortable to put money in renewables especially in the days of austerity, and some governments are
cutting their support." "The availability of cheap or lower gas prices are putting additional pressure on renewable energies," Birol
said. This is a bad thing, said the UN economist. Reuters gave this report on Birol’s apocalyptic warning regarding these
developments: Birol said that any reduction in investment in renewable energy would increase the risk of an increase in global
temperatures by 6 degree Celsius this century, describing the current trend as "catastrophic." "If there are no urgent and bold
policies put in place the door to a 2 degrees trajectory, the door to a normal life for us and for our children, will be closed and will be
closed forever," he said. The “increase in global temperatures by 6 degree Celsius this century” is one of the many absurd — and
persistent — claims made by AGW fanatics. Dr. William Happer, one of America’s preeminent physicists
and a professor of physics at Princeton University, explains here why the six-degree increase
bogeyman is ridiculous and completely without foundation in science. (A less technical
layman’s version of the Happer article is available here.) Many of the world’s leading authorities in climatology, meteorology,
atmospheric physics, paleo-geology, and many other disciplines (see below) have been weighing in on the skeptical/realist side over
the past few years and taking the position that it is beyond irresponsible for scientists and politicians to burden humanity with
enormous and unprecedented tax and regulatory burdens based merely on frightening computer model scenarios that cannot
sustain critical scientific examination. In science, facts and truth are discovered by measurement and
experiment, independent of surveys, opinion, popularity contests, and “consensus.” A fact
remains a fact whether or not one percent, 97 percent, or 100 percent of scientists believe it to
be a fact. And, conversely, a falsehood remains false even if 97 percent or even 100 percent of
scientists believe it to be true. The history of science is littered with many discarded falsehoods that were once universally
embraced by the scientific consensus of the day. Nevertheless, a credible claim of a consensus of 97 percent — near unanimity — of
scientists specializing in climate research (or any area of science) is not one that the common layman can, or should, lightly dismiss.
After all, we laymen must rely on expert scientific opinion, on specialists, for many important issues involving health, medicine,
energy, national defense, etc. And if virtually all scientists say something is true, we would be foolish to challenge their claims —
unless we have extraordinary evidence to the contrary. There are key words and questions involved here: Do we have a “credible
claim of consensus of 97%,” or is there “extraordinary evidence to the contrary”? The answer to the former is a resounding “No,” and
to the latter an equally resounding “Yes.” Crash Goes the Phony Consensus One of the biggest lies of the AGW alarmist camp has
been that virtually all scientists of any stature and expertise support the claims of AGW activists. Only old dinosaurs unfamiliar with
modern climate research or corrupt scientists bought off by the fossil fuel industry disagree, goes their argument. The truth is
strikingly at odds with this claim. As we noted last year (“'Climate Science' in Shambles: Real Scientists Battle UN Agenda") two of
the most important AGW scientist activists have jumped ship and now battle against the cause they once supported: James Lovelock
(photo above), the British inventor, NASA scientist, author, and originator of the Gaia Hypothesis; and Professor Fritz Vahrenholt, a
founding father of Germany’s environmental movement and a director of one of Europe’s largest alternative energy companies. But
that dynamic duo comprises only a minute fraction of the thousands of distinguished scientists who take issue
with the AGW activists. In the same article last year, we noted that some of the IPCC’s severest critics are scientists who
have served as lead authors and expert reviewers of IPCC reports and have witnessed from the inside the blatant bias and politics
masquerading as science. Former and current IPCC experts who have spoken out against the IPCC’s abuse of science include such
prominent scientists as: • Dr. Judith Curry, chair of the Georgia Institute of Technology's School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences;
• Mike Hulme, professor of climate science at East Anglia University where the Climategate e-mails were hacked; • Dr. Richard
Lindzen, MIT climate physicist and Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology, Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences; •
Dr. John Christy, climatologist of the University of Alabama in Huntsville and NASA; • Dr. Lee C. Gerhard, past director and state
geologist with the Kansas Geological Society and senior scientist emeritus of the University of Kansas; • Dr. Patrick J. Michaels,
former Virginia State climatologist, a UN IPCC reviewer, and University of Virginia professor of environmental sciences; • Dr.
Vincent Gray, New Zealand chemist and climate researcher; • Dr. Tom V. Segalstad, geologist/geochemist, head of the Geological
Museum in Norway; and • Dr. John T. Everett, a former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) senior manager
and project manager for the UN Atlas of the Oceans. In 2010, Marc Morano of ClimateDepot.com published an important 321-page
report featuring the statements of more than 1,000 renowned scientists worldwide who have challenged the IPCC’s manmade
global-warming claims. (The full report may be downloaded for free, as a PDF, here.) The 1,000+ lineup of scientists reads like a
Who’s Who of the global scientific community. It includes: • Dr. Willie Soon, Harvard-Smithsonian Center astrophysicist; • Dr.
William Happer, Cyrus Fogg Bracket professor of physics, Princeton University; • Dr. Leonard Weinstein, 35 years at the NASA
Langley Research Center and presently a senior research fellow at the National Institute of Aerospace; • Dr. Robert B. Laughlin,
Nobel Prize-winning Stanford University physicist, formerly a research scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; • Dr.
Anatoly Levitin, the head of the geomagnetic variations laboratory at the Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere and
Radiowave Propagation of the Russian Academy of Sciences; • Dr. Hans Jelbring, Swedish climatologist of the Paleogeophysics &
Geodynamics Unit at Stockholm University; • Burt Rutan, renowned engineer, inventor, and aviation/space pioneer; • Dr. Syun-Ichi
Akasofu, emeritus professor of physics, and founding director, International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska
Fairbanks; • Dr. Bjarne Andresen, physicist, and professor, The Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark; and • Dr.
Ian D. Clark, professor, isotope hydrogeology and paleoclimatology, University of Ottawa, Canada. And if still more proof is needed
that the science is not “settled” — as Al Gore, the IPCC, the UN, and other members of the alarmist choir claim — more than 31,000
scientists in the United States have signed a petition urging the U.S. government to reject the types of actions that have been
proposed at UN forums in Kyoto, Copenhagen, Cancun, and Rio. The Petition Project, organized by Dr. Arthur Robinson of the
Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine and Dr. Frederick Seitz, past president of the National Academy of Sciences,
demonstrates a resounding rejection of claims that there is any kind of "overwhelming
consensus" that anthropogenic global warming is a crisis or serious threat. The petition reads, in part:
The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage
the health and welfare of mankind. There is no convincing scientific evidence that human
release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will,
in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere
and disruption of the Earth's climate. Many of the scientists cited above, as well as hundreds more among
those featured in the ClimateDepot study cited, have published peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals, but as our report on the
Cook study noted, these articles by skeptic/realist authors have been systematically filtered out of the lists of accepted studies, with
the obvious intent of supporting the thesis that published scientists overwhelmingly subscribe to the manmade global warming
thesis. The Cook study claimed to be able to find only 78 published studies that supported the skeptical viewpoint. However,
PopularTechnology.net published a list of “1100+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skeptic Arguments
Against ACC/AGW Alarm,” which, again, underscores the shoddy (or intentionally
censorious and dishonest) research involved in the celebrated Cook study.
Censorship Exposed Since we've mentioned censorship, it is worthy of note that the 2009
Climategate e-mail scandal at East Anglia University exposed a vicious and seamy side of the
climate-change fraternity that outraged even many of the alarmists’ supporters. As shown here,
here, and here, some of the most famous scientists, journals, and institutions promoting AGW
alarmism have unethically and maliciously blocked (and/or attempted to block) the publication
of papers by fellow scientists who were considered to be opponents of AGW, or who were
considered to be simply insufficiently alarmist. Some of the alarmists went even further,
attempting to destroy the reputations of skeptics and/or get them fired. If they can’t achieve their
“consensus” one way, they’ll get it another. As we draw closer to the release of the IPCC’s WGI report in September, we can expect
that the campaign of climate-alarmist misinformation and disinformation will intensify.
Empirics prove no warming and impacts are hyperbolic – their
authors use fraudulent data and are ideologically biased.
Deming 09 –geophysicist and associate professor at the University of Oklahoma (David, “Global Warming is a Fraud”,
6/29/09; < http://www.lewrockwell.com/2009/06/david-deming/global-warming-is-a-fraud/>)//Beddow
As the years pass and data accumulate, it is becoming evident that global warming is a fraud.
Climate change is natural and ongoing, but the Earth has not warmed significantly over the last
thirty years. Nor has there been a single negative effect of any type that can be unambiguously attributed to global warming. As
I write, satellite data show that the mean global temperature is the same that it was in 1979. The extent of global sea ice is also
unchanged from 1979. Since the end of the last Ice Age, sea level has risen more than a hundred meters. But for the last three
years, there has been no rise in sea level. If the polar ice sheets are melting, why isn’t sea level
rising? Global warming is supposed to increase the severity and frequency of tropical storms.
But hurricane and typhoon activity is at a record low. Every year in the US, more than forty thousand people are
killed in traffic accidents. But not one single person has ever been killed by global warming. The number of species that
have gone extinct from global warming is exactly zero. Both the Antarctic and Greenland Ice
Sheets are stable. The polar bear population is increasing. There has been no increase in
infectious disease that can be attributed to climate change. We are not currently experiencing
more floods, droughts, or forest fires. In short, there is no evidence of any type to
support the idea that we are entering an era when significant climate change is
occurring and will cause the deterioration of either the natural environment or the
human standard of living. Why do people think the planet is warming? One reason is that the temperature data from
weather stations appear to be hopelessly contaminated by urban heat effects. A survey of the 1221 temperature stations in the US by
meteorologist Anthony Watts and his colleagues is now more than 80 percent complete. The magnitude of putative global warming
over the last 150 years is about 0.7 C. But only 9 percent of meteorological stations in the US are likely to have temperature errors
lower than 1 C. More than two-thirds of temperature sensors used to estimate global warming are located near artificial heating
sources such as air conditioning vents, asphalt paving, or buildings. These sources are likely to introduce artifacts greater than 2 C
into the temperature record. Another cause of global warming hysteria is the infiltration of
science by ideological zealots who place politics above truth. Earlier this month, the Obama
administration issued a report that concluded global warming would have a number of deleterious effects on the US. In 1995, one
of the lead authors of this report told me that we had to alter the historical temperature record
by “getting rid” of the Medieval Warm Period. The Obama report refers to — six times — the work of a climate
scientist named Stephen H. Schneider. In 1989, Schneider told Discover magazine
that “ we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements,
and make little mention of any doubts we might have. ” Schneider concluded “each of us has to
decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.” Schneider’s position is not unusual. In 2007, Mike
Hulme, the founding director of the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research in Britain, told the Guardian newspaper that
“scientists and politicians must trade truth for influence.” While releasing a politicized report that prostitutes
there were
“glaring inconsistencies” between the scientific data and the hypothesis that carbon dioxide
emissions were changing the climate. If we had an appreciation for history, we would not be fooled so easily. It has
all happened before, albeit on a smaller scale in an age where people had more common sense.
On May 19, 1912, the Washington Post posed these questions: “Is the climate of the world
changing? Is it becoming warmer in the polar regions?” On November 2, 1922, the Associated Press reported that “the Arctic
science to politics, the Obama administration simultaneously suppressed an internal EPA report that concluded
Ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the waters too hot.” On February 25,
1923, the New York Times concluded that “the Arctic appears to be warming up.” On December 21, 1930, the Times noted that
“Alpine glaciers are in full retreat.” A few months later the New York Times concluded that there was “a radical change in climatic
conditions and hitherto unheard of warmth” in Greenland. About the only thing that has changed at the Times since 1930 is that no
one working there today is literate enough to use the word “hitherto.” After the warm weather of the 1930s gave
way to a cooling trend beginning in 1940, the media began speculating on the imminent arrival
of a new Ice Age. We have now come full circle, mired in a hopeless cycle of reincarnated
ignorance. H. L. Mencken understood this process when he explained “the whole aim of
practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of
them imaginary.”
Methane
No risk of methane – if bursts occur, scientists agree they won’t be
catastrophic.
Schiermeier 08 – science and policy expert, studies climate, oceanography, fisheries, and earth science, cartographer,
graduate in geography, stats, and econ from University of Munich, writer for Nature international weekly journal of science (Quirin,
“Fears surface over methane leaks”, 9/26/08, http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080926/full/455572a.html)//Beddow
Preliminary data from two Arctic cruises suggest that rising temperatures are already causing
substantial amounts of methane to be released from beneath the ocean floor. But catastrophic
gas leaks, like those believed to have occurred 55 million years ago, are unlikely, scientists say. In
the past few weeks, scientists aboard the British research ship James Clark Ross have discovered more than 250 plumes of methane
bubbling up along the continental margin northwest of Svalbard. The findings add to a similar discovery by a Russian team in
August, that reported elevated methane concentrations near the Lena River delta, as part of the International Siberian Shelf Study
(ISSS). The findings have provoked alarmist media reports predicting massive methane bursts that could accelerate global warming.
Methane is a far more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, although it is present in much lower concentrations in the
atmosphere. But the phenomenon is probably not new. The scientists believe that methane has been
released in the region for at least 15,000 years. "What we're now seeing certainly did not start in the last year or so,"
says geophysicist Graham Westbrook of the University of Birmingham, UK, who led the British team. "We have observed
increased methane concentrations in the Laptev Sea during several expeditions since the mid1990s," says Igor Semiletov, who oversees the ISSS methane programme aboard the Russian research ship Jacob Smirnitskyi. "But
the data set is extremely limited. Whether what we're seeing in the region is of any relevance for
the global climate is mere speculation." Semiletov says that the scientists did measure higher concentrations of
dissolved methane this summer compared to summer sampling in 2003 and 2004 (N. Shakhova and I. Semiletov J. Mar. Sys. 66,
227–243; 2007). At one ice-covered site in the mere 50-metre shelf water, they detected methane bubbling at the surface, indicating
that at least some of the gas released at the seabed is escaping into the atmosphere before being consumed by bacteria in the water
column. Geologists think that billions of tonnes of methane lie beneath the sub-sea permafrost in some parts of the shallow Siberian
shelf, although estimates vary widely. The hydrocarbon — trapped there either as a gas, or bound in solid ice-like structures called
methane hydrates — is a remnant from the last ice age when the sea level was about 100 metres lower. The big fear is that
the methane could escape as a result of the permafrost becoming porous, possibly from an
increased influx of freshwater from the relatively warm Lena River. "The risk is real," says HansWolfgang Hubberten, a permafrost expert at the Alfred Wegener Institute of Polar and Marine
Research in Potsdam, Germany. "But there's no reason to panic. Claims that gas hydrates are on
the brink of dissociating in a big way should be taken with a large pinch of salt." Thermal
modelling suggests that the marine permafrost in the region is relatively stable. However, drillings
conducted in 2005 revealed that the permafrost may have slightly warmed and thinned (V. Rachold et al. Eos 88, 149–156; 2007).
Even so, says Hubberten, it is likely that the observed emissions come from 'new' methane produced by increased bacterial activity
in thawing soil, rather than from degradation of ancient gas hydrates.
AT: Bio-D
Warming improves biodiversity.
Goklany 12 – science and technology policy analyst for the US Department of the Interior, Assistant Director of Programs,
Science, and Technology Policy, represented the US at the IPCC, rapporteur for the Resource Use and Management Subgroup of
Working Group III of the IPCC First Assessment Report, PhD in electrical engineering (Indur M., “Is Climate Change the Number
One Threat to Humanity?” 8/28/12; http://goklany.org/library/Goklany_WIREs.pdf)//Beddow
Despite concerns about the ecological impacts of warming, the FTA studies suggest that it may actually reduce
existing stresses on ecosystems and biodiversity through 2085–2100. Table 4, provides FTA results for 2085–
2100 regarding the variation in three specific ecological indicators across the different IPCC scenarios. 23,25 One indicator is the net
biome productivity (a measure of the terrestrial biosphere’s net carbon sink capacity). The second indicator is the area of cropland (a
crude measure of the amount of habitat converted to human use; the lower it is, the better is it for maintaining biodiversity and
ecosystems). Such land conversion to agriculture is perhaps the single largest threat to global terrestrial biodiversity. 114,115 The
third indicator is the global loss of coastal wetlands relative to 1990 levels. The table shows that biosphere’s sink capacity
under each scenario would be higher in 2100 than in the base year (1990), largely due to higher
CO 2 concentrations and because these effects were not projected to be overridden by the
negative effects of higher temperatures over that period. For the same reasons, global sink capacity would be
higher for the A1FI and A2 scenarios. Partly for the same reasons and its lower population compared to other scenarios, the amount
of cropland in 2100 would be lowest for the A1FI world. This is followed by the B1 and B2 worlds. [Levy et al. did not provide
cropland estimates for the A2 scenario.] Thus, through 2100 the warmest (A1FI) scenario would
have the least habitat loss and, therefore, pose the smallest risk to terrestrial
biodiversity and ecosystems, while the B2 scenario would pose the greatest risk to habitat, biodiversity and
ecosystems. Regarding coastal wetlands, although losses due to sea level rise (SLR) are substantial,
the contribution of global warming to total losses in 2085 are smaller than losses due to
subsidence from other man ‐ made causes. 23 Table 4 shows that wetland losses are much higher for the A1FI and
A2 scenarios than for the B1 and B2 scenarios. This is, however, due mainly to the assumption that the first two scenarios would
have higher non ‐ climate change related subsidence (Ref. 23, p. 76) but this assumption is questionable. 9
AT: Water
Global warming reduces water shortages – precipitation, empirics,
and adaptation.
Goklany 12 – science and technology policy analyst for the US Department of the Interior, Assistant Director of Programs,
Science, and Technology Policy, represented the US at the IPCC, rapporteur for the Resource Use and Management Subgroup of
Working Group III of the IPCC First Assessment Report, PhD in electrical engineering (Indur M., “Is Climate Change the Number
One Threat to Humanity?” 8/28/12; http://goklany.org/library/Goklany_WIREs.pdf)//Beddow
The possibility of water shortages leading to droughts and hunger are recurring themes in the climate change literature. 31,33
However, several global impact studies indicate that warming may reduce net global PAR for water
stress. Deaths from droughts are probably the best indicator of the socioeconomic impact of
such water shortages. However, since the 1920s despite a more ‐ than ‐ tripling of the global
population, deaths and death rates from droughts have declined by 99.97% and 99.99%,
respectively. 50 Yet another concern is access to safer water. But between 1990 and 2008, although global population increased
27%, the percentage of global population with such access increased from 76.8% to 86.8%. This translates into an additional 1.8
billion people gaining access to safer water over this period. 110,111 Simultaneously, 1.3 billion more people got access to improved
sanitation. Even
in Sub ‐ Saharan Africa the population with access to improved water sources
increased from 48.9% to 59.7% from 1990–2008, which translates into 240 million additional
people. Such improvements attest to the fact that despite any warming, climate ‐
sensitive indicators of human well ‐ being can and have advanced. That is, human
adaptive responses have more than offset any possible deterioration from
warming. Regarding the future, Figure 5 provides estimates of the global PAR for water stress in 2085 from the FTA water
resources analysis. 21 It displays changes in PAR due to climate change alone and total PAR after climate change. Despite totally
ignoring autonomous adaptations which, therefore, overestimates net adverse impacts, the FTA study indicates that warming
could, as previously noted, reduce net global PAR for water stress. 78 This occurs
because warming should increase global precipitation, and although some areas may
receive less precipitation, other, more populated areas are, serendipitously, projected to receive
more. Other studies, e.g., Oki and Kanae’s review of global freshwater impact studies, also suggest a net decline in
water stress due to warming 112 . Similarly, Alcamo et al. 26 found that by 2050, relative to current conditions, water
stress would increase in 62%–76% of total global river basin area but decrease in 20%–29% under the A2 and B2 scenarios.
However, in only 10% of the area would climate change be the principal cause of the increasing stress. In the other 90%, it would be
higher water withdrawals. On the other hand, climate change would be the major factor in most of the area (approximately 50–80%)
experiencing decreasing stress. More recently, van Vuuren et al. 34 found that net PAR for water stress would decline in 2100 under
a scenario corresponding to a global temperature increase of 3.5 °C above the 1960 ‐ 1990 average. This analysis also ignored
changes in adaptive capacity which, as noted, overestimates increases in the water ‐ stressed
population while underestimating declines. Using a similar methodology, Arnell et al.’s (2011) 113 results also
show that the net increase in the water ‐ stressed population from 2000 to 2100 would be
dominated by non ‐ climate change factors by at least three to one (relative to warming). They
also show that climate change may not increase the net water ‐ stressed population through
2100 (relative to “no climate change”). Similarly, even after mitigation to limit the average global temperature increase
to 2°C, the net water ‐ stressed population may be higher relative to the “no climate change” case. Equally importantly,
mitigation may actually increase the net water ‐ stressed population over the unmitigated
climate change scenario.
Adaptation
Adaptation solves – empirics prove.
Goklany 12 – science and technology policy analyst for the US Department of the Interior, Assistant Director of Programs,
Science, and Technology Policy, represented the US at the IPCC, rapporteur for the Resource Use and Management Subgroup of
Working Group III of the IPCC First Assessment Report, PhD in electrical engineering (Indur M., “Is Climate Change the Number
One Threat to Humanity?” 8/28/12; http://goklany.org/library/Goklany_WIREs.pdf)//Beddow
Greater economic development, i.e., net GDP per capita, should translate into higher adaptive
capacity because an increase in economic resources ought to increase access to both the
technologies and the human capital needed to cope with change, whether that change is due to
global warming or any other agency. 41,48 In addition, several factors that advance human capital—e.g., educational
attainment, improved health, expenditures for health and research 49 —are also correlated with increases with GDP per capita.
41,48 This may partly be due to the fact economic development and human capital reinforce each
other and partly because factors that enhance one also enhance the other. 41,48 Moreover, if
existing technologies are inadequate for coping with change, wealthier societies
have a greater capacity to research, develop, and deploy needed new technologies.
A case in point is the world’s response to HIV/AIDS. Once a mysterious new disease that spelled almost certain
death for its victims, it is now a disease that is manageable, particularly in the wealthier world. The
effort to tame this disease was spearheaded by, and accomplished at considerable cost to, the
wealthier nations, who then have made the fruits of this exercise available to poorer countries
(Ref. 43, p. 21; Ref. 48, pp. 67–68). Arguably, this was enabled by the greater wealth and human capital available to the wealthier
countries. This would be consistent with the notion that wealthier societies are more resilient to adversity in general. Another
important factor contributing to adaptive capacity that is often ignored in impact assessments is, as noted, secular technological
change (Ref. 33, Chapter 17; Refs 9, 41, 43). Long
‐ term projections that neglect economic development and
secular technological change generally overstate future negative impacts on critical aspects of
human well ‐ being, often by an order of magnitude or more. 43,48 For example, the FTA’s malaria study
assumed static adaptive capacity between baseline and projection years (1990–2085). 19 Applying the same assumption to project
U.S. deaths in 1970 from various water ‐ related diseases—dysentery, typhoid, paratyphoid, other gastrointestinal disease, malaria—
using data from 1900 implies freezing death rates at 1900 levels. But, in fact, from 1900–1970 they declined by 99.6%–100.0%. 43
Similarly, because of the increase in adaptive capacity globally, global death rates from extreme weather events have declined by
98% since the 1920s. 50 Simplistic projections that do not fully account for economic and technological development are the major
reason why highly publicized projections from The Limits to Growth and The Population Bomb , for instance, failed the reality test.
43,48
Adaption solves - new methods
Vermeulen and Challinor 13(Dr Sonja Vermeulen is the Head of Research for the CGIAR Research Program on Climate
Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), Dr Andy Challinor is a professor at the Institute for Climate and Atmosphere Science, School of
Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds, and co-leads research on climate adaptation in CCAFS. “How farmers can adapt to a warming
world”
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/06/20136585711493753.html)
In these examples, countries have made progress on climate-resilient agriculture by focusing on what
is known rather than what remains unclear. Computer models can be used to estimate climate
impacts on a range of timescales. Models can predict areas of crop failure in West Africa a few months
ahead of the harvest, for example. On longer timescales, models show that northeast China’s wheat-growing regions will need
more heat-tolerant crops within a few decades. This kind of knowledge helps us select adaptation strategies with
confidence despite many remaining uncertainties about the future.¶ It is not just heat stress that is
important. Low-lying coastal rice-growing regions should prepare for more saline conditions fed by a
rise in sea level. Areas plagued by drought should sustainably tap their groundwater rather than deplete it. In parts of Texas,
Oklahoma and Kansas, for example, maize farmers could switch to sorghum and other less waterintensive crops where groundwater depletion has made irrigation more difficult.¶ Scientists are
learning to communicate climate predictions and uncertainties in ways that are more useful to
planners and policymakers. It is more helpful to say when a particular change is likely to happen - “starting sometime between 2020
and 2040, there won’t be enough rain here to grow vegetables without irrigation” - than to give a string of probabilities linked to distant
futures. All of society - especially farmers - needs to know when specific changes are needed.¶ As the amount of greenhouse gases in our
atmosphere continues to increase, the effects of climate change on agriculture will become increasingly visible. It is urgent to adjust or even
transform agriculture even if our knowledge is incomplete. The
science of adaptation has matured enough for us to
make robust adaptation plans based on what we do know. It is time to embrace and deploy this
science and start figuring out how we will feed ourselves in the future.
Alt Cause
Developing countries are the largest emitters of CO2
Lefeber 8/24/2012 (Rene DOCTOR CHAIR IN INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL
LAW THE THE UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM Polar Warming: An Opportune
Inconveniencehttp://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2151241
The single biggest environmental threat for the Polar Regions, however, is global
warming. Global warming is addressed by the international community through
the regulation of the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that
have an anthropogenic origin (mitigation).91 The temperature in the Polar Regions
rises faster than anywhere else on Earth. The causes are not yet fully understood, but it is
presumed that specific regional features, such as the observed decrease in the power of snow
and ice to reflect sunlight (albedo effect), contribute significantly to the relative fast rise of the
temperature. This is caused, amongst others, by the deposit of smut in the Polar
Regions which was released into the atmosphere by the emission of black carbon
(or soot). Developing countries are the main source of emissions of black carbon in
the 21st century. The emissions of industrialized countries have been significantly
reduced in the second halve of the last century. Public health considerations were
the main reason for the implementation of various measures, such as the use of
catalysts in cars, to achieve emission reductions of black carbon. Black carbon is a
greenhouse gas under the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (Climate Change Convention), but it is not subject to the emission targets of the
Kyoto Protocol to that Convention (Art. 3.1 and Annex A). Furthermore, developing
countries are not subject to the Kyoto Protocol emission targets even though these
countries are now the main source of contemporary emissions of this greenhouse
gas
Disasters
UN report confirms – warming doesn’t cause extreme weather.
Michaels 4/18 – Director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute and senior fellow in research and
economic development at George Mason University (Patrick J., “The Climate Horror Picture Show, Brought to You by Dodgy
Science”, 4/18/13; http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/climate-horror-picture-show-brought-you-dodgyscience)//Beddow
Pop quiz. Who wrote this: “There is medium evidence and high agreement that long-term trends
in
normalized losses have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate
change”? a) Someone who does not know how to write b) The Koch Brothers c) The Cato Institute d) The United Nations’
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Well, it’s obviously “a”, and not likely to be “b”, as Charles Koch writes very
clearly. Nor would such a poorly constructed sentence have gotten by the Cato editors (“c”). Which leaves “d.” That’s right, it’s in
a
recent report on “climate extremes” from our pals at the UN . Of course they couldn’t come
right out and say it, so it’s up to others to translate to common English: any trends in weatherrelated losses are not related to dreaded global warming. But that hasn’t stopped the $3.5 billion per year U.S.
Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). Instead, their draft “National Assessment” of climate change in the United States flogs
more “extreme” climate in just about every one of the 30 chapters in this 1200-page doorstop. The USGCRP is just about every
organization that consumes an oodle of the multibillion dollar pie. It therefore considers its pronouncements to be the consensus of
climate scientists. So does the IPCC. They can’t both be right. One thing that’s apparent in the new Assessment is that federal
funding is awarded preferentially to those who thrive in a data-free environment. Weather-related damages are not increasing, as
percentage of GDP. When you produce more stuff (increasing GDP), there’s more stuff to get hit by bad weather. The
“Transportation” chapter of this climate horror picture show asserts that pernicious climate change is “reducing the reliability and
capacity of the U.S. transportation system”. Really? But, here is reality: Does this look like reduction in capacity? Does this? Or is
this related to global warming? The fact of the matter is the vast balance of evidence is that the current National
Assessment is an incredible exaggeration of the effects of climate change on the United States. So
why was it done? Consider the “mission statement” of the USGCRP: “Thirteen Agencies, One Mission: Empower the Nation with
Global Change Science”. The operative word is “empower,” which is the purpose of the Assessment. It is to provide cover for a
massive regulatory intrusion, and concomitant enormous costs in resources and individual liberty. History tells us that when
scientists willingly endorse sweeping governmental agendas fueled by dodgy science, bad things soon happen.
Irreversible
We’re already passed the tipping point – it’s irreversible.
McPherson 12 – Professor Emeritus of Natural Resources and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at University of Arizona
(Guy R., “We’re Done”, 6/22/12; http://www.collapsenet.com/free-resources/collapsenet-public-access/item/8363-guymcpherson-were-done)//Beddow
As I pointed out in this space a few years ago, I concluded in 2002 that we had set into motion climate-change
processes likely to cause our own extinction by 2030. I mourned for months, to the bewilderment of the three
people who noticed. And then, shortly thereafter, I was elated to learn about a hail-Mary pass that just might allow our persistence
for a few more generations: Peak oil and its economic consequences might bring the industrial economy to an overdue close, just in
time. Like Pandora with her vessel, I retained hope. No more. Stick a fork in us. We’re done, broiled beyond We're Donewishful
thinking. It seems we’ve experienced a lethal combination of too much cheap oil and too little
wisdom. Yet again, I’ve begun mourning. It’s no easier the second time. As always, I’m open to alternative views — in fact, I’m
begging for them, considering the gravity of this particular situation — but the supporting evidence will have to be extraordinary. By
the way, irrationally invoking Al Gore doesn’t count as evidence. Ditto for unsubstantiated rumors about global cooling. A small
dose of critical thinking might be required, rather than the ability to repeat lines touted by neoconservatives and their owners in the fossil-fuel industries. Before you launch into the ridicule I’ve come to
expect from those who comment anonymously from a position of hubris and ignorance in the blogosphere, I invite you to fully
consider the information below. I recommend setting aside normalcy bias and wishful thinking as you peruse the remainder of this
brief essay. (While you’re at it, go ahead and look up the word “peruse.” It probably doesn’t mean what you think it means. I’ll make
it easy: Here’s a link to the definition.) We know Earth’s temperature is nearly one degree Centigrade higher
than it was at the beginning of the industrial revolution. And 1 C is catastrophic, as indicated by a
decades-old cover-up. Already, we’ve triggered several positive feedbacks, none of which
were expected to occur by mainstream scientists until we reached 2 C above baseline global
average temperature. We also know that the situation is far worse than indicated by recent data
and models (which are reviewed in the following paragraphs). We’ve known for more than a decade what happens when the
planes stop flying: Because particulates were removed when airplanes were grounded, Earth warmed by more than 1 C in the three
days following 11 September 2001. In other words, Earth’s temperature is already about 2 C higher than the industrial-revolution
baseline. And because of positive feedbacks, 2 C leads directly and rapidly to 6 C, acidification-
induced death of the world’s oceans, and the near-term demise of Homo sapiens. We can’t
live without life-filled oceans, home to the tiny organisms that generate half the planet’s oxygen
while comprising the base of the global food chain (contrary to the common belief that Wal-Mart forms the base
of the food chain). So much for the wisdom of the self-proclaimed wise ape. With completion of the on-going demise of the industrial
economy, we’re there: We’ve crossed the horrifically dire 2 C rubicon, as will be obvious when most of
the world’s planes are grounded. Without completion of the on-going demise of the industrial economy, we’re there:
We’ve crossed the horrifically dire 2 C rubicon, as described below. Joseph Heller, anybody? I’ve detailed the increasingly dire
assessments. And I’ve explained how we’ve pulled the trigger on five positive-feedback events at lower
global average temperature than expected, while also pointing out that any one of these five
phenomena likely leads to near-term human extinction. None of these positive-feedback events were expected
by scientists until we exceed 2 C warming above the pre-industrial baseline. My previous efforts were absurdly
optimistic, as demonstrated by frequent updates (for example, here, here, and here, in chronological order). Yet my frequent
writing, rooted in scientific analyses, can barely keep up with increasingly terrifying information about climate change. Every
day, we have more reliable knowledge about the abyss into which we have plunged. Consider, for
example, the International Energy Agency’s forecast of business-as-usual leading to a 6 C warmer
planet by 2035. Malcolm Light, writing for the Arctic Methane Emergency Group, considers one of the many positive feedbacks
we’ve triggered in one planetary region and reaches this conclusion: “This process of methane release will
accelerate exponentially, release huge quantities of methane into the atmosphere and lead to the
demise of all life on earth before the middle of this century.” Please read that sentence again. Light is a
retired earth-systems scientist. As nearly as I can distinguish, he has no hidden agenda, though he believes geo-engineering
will save us (an approach that would take several years to implement, and one that we’d almost certainly
FUBAR). Forecasts by the International Energy Agency and the Arctic Methane Emergency group match the recent trend of
increasingly dire assessments based on collection and interpretation of more data and increasingly powerful models. If these
forecasts are close to accurate, we’ve only a requiem to write for human beings on Earth. It’s
time to modify Keynes’ famous line thusly: “In the short run, we’re all dead.” For those of us living in the
interior of a large continent, much less on a rock-pile in the desert, I’d give us until 2020 at the latest. Carpe diem,
reveling in the one life we get.
Warming is irreversible.
Whitaker 12 – Examiner reporter, citing study by the American Meteorological Society (Sterling, “New Report Calls Global
Warming ‘Irreversible’, predicts global collapse”, 8/29/12; < http://www.examiner.com/article/new-report-calls-global-warmingirreversible-predicts-global-collapse>)//Beddow
Global warming has become irreversible, according to a new report from the American Meteorological Society. EIN
Newswire reports that the AMS made the startling finding in an information report published on August 20, 2012. The report finds
that even if governments, corporations and individuals cut their green house gas
emissions drastically today, it would still be too late to head off a coming global
disaster. Those findings echo the claims made in the 1972 report 'Limits to Growth,' in which a team of MIT researchers
entered a variety of different economic and environmental scenarios into a computer model. Most of those scenarios indicated that
without significant limits to human consumption patterns, the result would be a complete global economic collapse by 2030. The
1972 report also stated that to avoid the predicted consequences, drastic changes were required to protect the environment. In the
ensuing decades the environmental outlook has continued to worsen, human consumption has
grown and the population of the world has exploded.
Warming inevitable-even if emissions cut to zero
Maharjan 13 (Keshav Dr. of Agricultural Economics Methodologies to Assess the Impact of
Climate Change in Agriculture www.springer.com)
Since the initial assessment of response to different controlled variables is based¶
on the controlled experiment, such models have limitations of Isolation from the¶
variety and variability of factors and conditions that affect production at the field¶
condition (Adams et al. 1998). Thus, these types of models have limitation on prop¶ erly
understanding the effects of a wide range of variables associated with global¶
warming (Schlenker and Roberts 2008). In addition, though it is unequivocal that¶
global warming is inevitable in the coming century, even if emissions of
greenhouse¶ gases is stabilized at current level, there exists debate and uncertainty on
the extent¶ of warming as well as other related changes (IPCC 2007; Rosegrant et al. 2008).¶
Similarly. due to huge cost involved in installing the experiment setup. application¶ of such
models in the case of developing countries is very limited.
Feedbacks
Empirics prove – negative feedbacks check warming.
Evans 12 –consultant of the Australian Greenhouse Office/Department of Climate Change, main modeler of carbon in
Australia’s biosphere 1999-2005, mathematician, engineer with 6 university degrees, Ph.D. from Stanford in electrical engineering
(David. M. W., “The Skeptic’s Case”, 2/24/12; < https://mises.org/daily/5892/The-Skeptics-Case>)//Beddow
The serious skeptical scientists have always agreed with the government climate scientists about the direct effect of CO2. The
argument is entirely about the feedbacks. The feedbacks dampen or reduce the direct effect of
the extra CO2, cutting it roughly in half.[5] The main feedbacks involve evaporation, water
vapor, and clouds. In particular, water vapor condenses into clouds, so extra water vapor due to
the direct warming effect of extra CO2 will cause extra clouds, which reflect sunlight back out to
space and cool the earth, thereby reducing the overall warming. There are literally thousands of
feedbacks, each of which either reinforces or opposes the direct-warming effect of the extra CO2. Almost every long-lived system
is governed by net feedback that dampens its response to a perturbation. If a system instead reacts to a perturbation by amplifying it,
the system is likely to reach a tipping point and become unstable (like the electronic squeal that erupts when a microphone gets too
close to its speakers). The earth's climate is long-lived and stable — it has never gone into
runaway greenhouse, unlike Venus — which strongly suggests that the feedbacks
dampen temperature perturbations such as that from extra CO2. The climate models have
been essentially the same for 30 years now, maintaining roughly the same sensitivity to extra CO2 even while they got more detailed
with more computer power. How well have the climate models predicted the temperature? Does the data better support the climate
models or the skeptic's view? One of the earliest and most important predictions was presented to the US Congress in 1988 by Dr
James Hansen, the "father of global warming": Hansen's climate model clearly exaggerated future temperature
rises. In particular, his climate model predicted that if human CO2 emissions were cut back drastically starting in 1988, such that
by year 2000 the CO2 level was not rising at all, we would get his scenario C. But in reality the temperature did not
even rise this much, even though our CO2 emissions strongly increased — which suggests that
the climate models greatly overestimate the effect of CO2 emissions. A more considered
prediction by the climate models was made in 1990 in the IPCC's First Assessment Report:[8] It's 20 years now, and the average
rate of increase in reality is below the lowest trend in the range predicted by the IPCC. Ocean
Temperatures The oceans hold the vast bulk of the heat in the climate system. We've only been measuring ocean temperature
properly since mid-2003, when the Argo system became operational.[9][10] In Argo, a buoy duck dives down to a depth of 2,000
meters, measures temperatures as it very slowly ascends, then radios the results back to headquarters via satellite. Over 3,000 Argo
buoys constantly patrol all the oceans of the world. The ocean temperature has been basically flat since we
started measuring it properly, and not warming as quickly as the climate models predict. The
climate models predict a particular pattern of atmospheric warming during periods of global warming; the most prominent change
they predict is a warming in the tropics about 10 km up, the "hotspot." The hotspot is the sign of the amplification in their theory
(see figure 1). The theory says the hotspot is caused by extra evaporation, and by extra water vapor pushing the warmer, wetter lower
troposphere up into volume previously occupied by cool dry air. The presence of a hotspot would indicate amplification is occurring,
and vice versa. We have been measuring atmospheric temperatures with weather balloons since the 1960s. Millions of weather
balloons have built up a good picture of atmospheric temperatures over the last few decades, including the warming period from the
late 1970s to the late '90s. This important and pivotal data was not released publicly by the climate establishment until 2006, and
then in an obscure place.[13] Here it is: In reality there was no hotspot, not even a small one. So in reality
there is no amplification — the amplification shown in figure 1 does not exist.[16] The
climate models predict that when the surface of the earth warms, less heat is radiated from the earth into space (on a weekly or
monthly time scale). This is because, according to the theory, the warmer surface causes more evaporation and thus there is more
heat-trapping water vapor. This is the heat-trapping mechanism that is responsible for the assumed amplification in figure 1.
Satellites have been measuring the radiation emitted from the earth for the last two decades. A major study has linked the changes in
temperature on the earth's surface with the changes in the outgoing radiation. Here are the results: This shows that in reality
the earth gives off more heat when its surface is warmer. This is the opposite of what the climate
models predict. This shows that the climate models trap heat too aggressively, and that their
assumed amplification shown in figure 1 does not exist. All the data here is impeccably
sourced — satellites, Argo, and weather balloons.[18] The air and ocean temperature data shows that
the climate models overestimate temperature rises. The climate establishment suggest that cooling due to
undetected aerosols might be responsible for the failure of the models to date, but this excuse is
wearing thin — it continues not to warm as much as they said it would, or in the way they said it would. On the other hand, the rise
in air temperature has been greater than the skeptics say could be due to CO2. The skeptic's excuse is that the rise is
mainly due to other forces — and they point out that the world has been in a fairly steady
warming trend of 0.5°C per century since 1680 (with alternating ~30 year periods of warming
and mild cooling) where as the vast bulk of all human CO2 emissions have been after 1945. We've
checked all the main predictions of the climate models against the best data: Test Climate Models Air temperatures from 1988
Overestimated rise, even if CO2 is drastically cut Air temperatures from 1990 Overestimated trend rise Ocean temperatures from
2003 Overestimated trend rise greatly Atmospheric hotspot Completely missing → no amplification Outgoing radiation Opposite to
reality → no amplification The
climate models get them all wrong. The missing hotspot and outgoing
radiation data both, independently, prove that the amplification in the climate models is not
present. Without the amplification, the climate model temperature predictions would be cut by
at least two-thirds, which would explain why they overestimated the recent air and ocean
temperature increases. Therefore, The climate models are fundamentally flawed. Their assumed threefold
amplification by feedbacks does not in fact exist. The climate models overestimate temperature rises due to CO2 by
at least a factor of three. The skeptical view is compatible with the data. The data presented here is impeccably sourced, very
relevant, publicly available, and from our best instruments. Yet it never appears in the mainstream media — have you ever seen
anything like any of the figures here in the mainstream media? That alone tells you that the "debate" is about politics and power, and
not about science or truth. This is an unusual political issue, because there is a right and a wrong answer, and everyone will know
which it is eventually. People are going ahead and emitting CO2 anyway, so we are doing the experiment: either the world heats up
by several degrees by 2050 or so, or it doesn't. Notice that the skeptics agree with the government climate
scientists about the direct effect of CO2; they just disagree about the feedbacks. The climate debate is
all about the feedbacks; everything else is merely a sideshow. Yet hardly anyone knows that. The government climate scientists and
the mainstream media have framed the debate in terms of the direct effect of CO2 and sideshows such as arctic ice, bad weather, or
psychology. They almost never mention the feedbacks. Why is that? Who has the power to make that happen?
AT: Climate Wars
Climate wars don’t escalate
Weber 06 (ELKE U. WEBER Center for Research on Environmental Decisions, Columbia University
“EXPERIENCE-BASED AND DESCRIPTION-BASED PERCEPTIONS¶ OF LONG-TERM RISK: WHY GLOBAL
WARMING DOES NOT¶ SCARE US (YET)”)
It should come as no surprise that the governments and citizenries of many countries show¶ little
concern about climate change and its consequences. Behavioral decision research over the last¶ 30
years provides a series of lessons about the importance of affect in perceptions of risk and in¶ decisions
to take actions that reduce or manage perceived risks. Evidence from a range of domains¶ suggests
that worry drives risk management decisions. When people fail to be alarmed about a risk or¶ hazard,
they do not take precautions. Recent personal experience strongly influences the evaluation¶ of a risky
option. Low-probability events generate less concern than their probability warrants on¶ average, but
more concern than they deserve in those rare instances when they do occur. Personal¶ experience
with noticeable and serious consequences of global warming is still rare in many regions¶ of the
world. When people base their decisions on statistical descriptions about a hazard provided by¶ others,
characteristics of the hazard identified as psychological risk dimensions predict differences¶ in alarm or
worry across different classes of risk. The time-delayed, abstract, and often statistical¶ nature of the
risks of global warming does not evoke strong visceral reactions. These results suggest¶ that we should
find ways to evoke visceral reactions towards the risk of global warming, perhaps by¶ simulations of its
concrete future consequences for people’s home or other regions they visit or value.¶ Increased
concern about global warming needs to solicited carefully, however, to prevent a decrease in¶ concern
about other relevant risks. The generation of worry or concern about global warming may be¶ a
necessary but not sufficient condition for desirable or appropriate protective or mitigating behavior¶
on part of the general public. their public officials show so much less concern about global warming
than climate
scientists.
No Impact
Warming’s not an existential risk – adaptation, mitigation,
geoengineering, and empirically no runaway.
Muller 12 – writer on ethics and existential risks (Jonatas, “Analysis of Existential Risks”, 2012; <
http://www.jonatasmuller.com/x-risks.pdf>)//Beddow
A runaway global warming, one in which the temperature rises could be a self- reinforcing
process, has been cited as an existential risk. Predictions show that the Arctic ice could melt completely within a few
years, releasing methane currently trapped in the sea bed (Walter et al. 2007). Methane is a more powerful greenhouse gas than
carbon dioxide. Abrupt methane releases from frozen regions may have been involved in two extinction events on this planet, 55
million years ago in the Paleocene– Eocene Thermal Maximum, and 251 million years ago in the Permian–Triassic extinction event.
The fact that similar global warmings have happened before in the history of our
planet is a likely indication that the present global warming would not be of a
runaway nature. Theoretical ways exist to reverse global warmings with
technology, which may include capturing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere,
deflecting solar radiation, among other strategies. For instance, organisms such as algae are being
bioengineered to convert atmospheric greenhouse gases into biofuels (Venter 2008). Though they may cause
imbalances, these methods would seem to prevent global warming from being an existential risk
in the worst case scenario, but it may still produce catastrophic results.
Warming is not an existential risk – empirics.
Maslin et al 11 – Professor at Department of Geography at University College of London (Mark, “Global health and climate
change: moving from denial and catastrophic fatalism to positive action”, 2011;
http://rsta.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/369/1942/1866.full.pdf+html)//Beddow
Some people have even suggested that human extinction may not be a remote risk [17–19]. Sherwood
& Huber [7] point to continued heating effects that could make the world largely uninhabitable by
humans and mammals within 300 years. Peak heat stress, quantified by the wet-bulb temperature (used because it
reflects both the ambient temperature and relative humidity of the site), is surprisingly similar across diverse climates and never
exceeds 31 ◦ C. They suggest that if it rose to 35 ◦ C, which never happens now but would at a warming of 7 ◦ C, hyperthermia in
humans and other mammals would occur as dissipation of metabolic heat becomes impossible, therefore making many
environments uninhabitable. However, these studies do not take account of geological reconstructions. We
know that during the Eocene some 50 million years ago global temperature was at least 5 ◦ C higher than today, with forests on
Antarctica and rainforest extending as far north as Canada and as far south as Patagonia [20]. Some scientists argue that this was
the golden age of life, as there could have been at least twice as much living biomass on the Earth as today. At the beginning of this
period, there was an extreme period of global warming called the Paleocene–Eocene thermal maximum
when global temperatures were at least another 5 ◦ C warmer [ 21 , 22 ]. This did lead to some
extinction in the oceans but it was not the end of life on the planet nor did mammals
suffer mass extinctions. So, while history suggests that imminent catastrophe is as
false as climate change denial, it could be as big a threat to action. Catastrophic
speculation, especially when based on limited evidence and without specific time frames, may
induce an unnecessary sense of fatalism and helplessness when, in the shorter term, there is a
huge scope for positive action
Even the IPCC thinks this is absurd – the effects of warming will be
minor.
Friedman 7/5 – Milton Friedman’s son, PhD in theoretical physicist, economist, legal theorist, professor of law at Santa
Clara University, contributor to Liberty Magazine, verifiable genius (David, “Does Climate Catastrophe Pass the Giggle Test?”
7/5/09; < http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2009/07/does-climate-catastrophe-pass-giggle.html>)//Beddow
What I find unconvincing is the second half of the argument. More precisely, I
find unconvincing the claim that
climate change on the scale suggested by the results of the IPCC models would
have catastrophic consequences for humans. Obviously one can imagine climate change large enough
and fast enough to be a very serious problem—a rapid end of the current interglacial, for example. And if, as I believe is the case,
climate is not very well understood, one cannot absolutely rule out such changes. But most of the argument is put in terms not of
what might conceivably happen but of what we have good reason to expect to happen, and I
think the outer bound of that is provided by the IPCC models. They suggest a temperature increase of about
two degrees centigrade over the next hundred years, resulting in a sea level rise of about a foot and a half. What I find
implausible is the claim that changes on that scale at that speed would be catastrophic—
sufficiently so to justify very expensive measures now to prevent them. Human beings, after all,
currently live, work, grow food in a much wider range of climates than that. Glancing over a U.S. climate
map, it looks as though all of the places I have lived are within an hour or two drive of other places with an average temperature at
least two degrees centigrade higher. If people can currently live, work, grow crops over a temperature
range of much more than two degrees, it is hard to imagine any reason why most of them
couldn't continue to do so, about as easily, if average temperature shifted up by that amount—
especially if they had a century to adjust to the change. That observation raises the question with which I titled
this post: Does climate change catastrophe pass the giggle test ? Is the claim that climate change
of that scale would have catastrophic consequences one that any reasonable person could take
seriously?
***CO2 GOOD
Laundry List
Warming solves ice age, resources, agriculture, econ and disease AND
adaptation mitigates the worst impacts.
Que 06 – Stanford-educated electrical engineer (Simon, “The Bright Side of Global Warming”, 6/29/06; <
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2006/06/simon-que/the-bright-side-of-global-warming/>)//Beddow
Despite all the doomsday reports from environmentalists about global warming, there is reason
to rejoice if the earth does get warmer. In his Anti-Environmentalist Manifesto, Lew Rockwell writes: "There is no
evidence of global warming, but even if it were to take place, many scientists say the effect would be good: it would
lengthen growing seasons, make the earth more liveable, and forestall any future
ice age." Many researchers have studied and documented the bright side of a warming world climate trend. Thomas Gale
Moore, an economist at Stanford University's Hoover Institute, is the author of Climate of Fear: Why We Shouldn't Worry about
Global Warming, a book that describes the many ways that warmer weather helps human beings in all areas of life. And Moore is not
alone in taking this view. Many researchers have discovered the gains that human society makes in
warmer weather by studying its impact in various areas such as health and agriculture. Perhaps
the most direct and obvious benefit of warmer climate is its impact on human mortality rates .
Both extreme heat and extreme coldness bring the risk of death. Statistically and historically in the West, however, winters have
posed a greater threat to humans than summers have. According to William. R. Keatinge and Gavin. C. Donaldson, two researchers
at the University of London, "Cold-related deaths are far more numerous than heat-related deaths in the United States, Europe, and
almost all countries outside the tropics, and almost all of them are due to common illnesses that are increased by cold." One of their
studies of various regions of Europe showed that cold-related deaths outnumbered heat-related deaths by nearly ten to one.
Sherwood B. Idso, Craig D. Idso, and Keith E. Idso, researchers at the Center for the Study of CO2 and Global Change in Tempe, AZ,
agree. They point out that in both cold and warm countries, the risk of both cardiovascular and respiratory diseases is higher in the
winter months. Some have suggested that in warmer weather, mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria may increase as the climate
becomes more favorable to mosquito life. Historically, in England, malaria made a significant contribution to human deaths during a
cold period, and declined as temperatures rose during the 19th century. The same can be said of yellow fever, dengue, and tick-borne
encephalitis. Other studies show that there is either no connection between climate change and
incidence of these diseases, or that they decrease in warmer weather. The Idsos provide an
explanation for this counterintuitive finding. They suggest that human-dependent "factors such as the quality of
public health services, irrigation and agricultural activities, land uses practices," etc., have a far
greater impact on reducing vector-borne diseases. Draining wetlands for development, for example, eliminates
potential mosquito breeding grounds. Warmer weather is conducive to many of these activities. A
warmer world would also directly impact agricultural productivity, according to Moore.
Warmer weather means a longer growing season, and thus greater output. It would also result in
greater rainfall, providing much-needed water for plants. The risk of crop failures would
decrease with shorter, milder winters. As a result of elevated levels of carbon dioxide, the quality
and quantity of agricultural products have risen as well. Given the significant role that agriculture plays in
feeding people around the world, this is a huge benefit. Even if people do not consume more grown food, they still benefit from the
drop in prices that accompanies an expansion of supply. High carbon dioxide levels from industrial output, the alleged culprit
behind global warming, also improve the quality of certain plants. For example, many types of plants contain antioxidants,
substances that protect the body against destructive molecular radicals. In many plants, the concentration of antioxidants such as
vitamin C increases significantly under higher levels of carbon dioxide. The Idsos report their findings in their article. Given the
medical properties of these substances, greater CO2 levels are a very important health benefit. This should not come as a surprise to
anyone who has studied chemistry and plant biology. As part of photosynthesis, plants take in carbon dioxide and transform it into
organic compounds. These compounds are what give the plant its mass, nutritional value, and other beneficial properties. As college
freshmen learn in chemistry class, the rate of many chemical processes is proportional to the concentration of the inputs. A greater
concentration of carbon dioxide results in a greater rate of turnover, as more carbon dioxide is converted into plant matter in a given
time span. Consequently, plants grown under increased CO2 levels contain more biomass and nutrition. Warming climates
are advantageous to other forms of human activity as well. The Arctic Climate Impact
Assessment (ACIA), a study prepared by the Arctic Council, found that a warmer Arctic
would have more available resources. By reducing the polar ice caps, Arctic warming
opens up resources that were trapped by ice to human exploration and use. In light of recent gas
prices, one especially important advantage is increased access to oil deposits in the Arctic.
Transportation also benefits from more clement weather. Heavy rain and snow during the winter disrupt both ground and air
transportation, resulting in costly delays and hazardous conditions. The ACIA has also found that reduced ice caps would open up
sea routes through the arctic. Currently, many freighters must take the Panama Canal to reach the other side of North America. (The
ones that cannot fit in the canal must go around South America!) A
shortened route through the Arctic would
cause shipping costs to plummet, benefiting a multitude of industries that depend on carrying
goods between continents. The fishing industry stands to benefit as well. Moore notes a study that found that in a cooler
world, fish, shellfish, and crustacean catches would decline. Turning this analysis around, he concludes that warmer climate
would boost fishery productivity. The ACIA report agrees, citing the prospect of more productive fisheries in the Arctic
due to the northward migration of cod and capelin, made possible by warmer weather. On land, improved weather conditions would
benefit traffic as well. Currently, winter storms are one of the biggest factors in causing traffic problems and delays. They create
unsafe driving conditions. They force airports to postpone flights. If winters became shorter due to warming trends, road and airport
conditions would improve massively. A warming trend brings many benefits to economic
activity. Since so many people around the world are dependent on oil, fish, transportation, and
shipping, the economic advantages of warmer climate reach far and wide. As the supply of these goods
rises along with temperatures, prices would fall, allowing consumers to enjoy more without paying more. History shows that
warmer weather has always been on the side of human civilization. Moore describes the role that the
climate has played in primitive societies: "Primitive man and hunter-gatherer tribes were at the mercy of the weather, as are
societies that are still almost totally bound to the soil. A series of bad years can be devastating." In warm years, the growing season
was long and fruitful. Animals flourished, providing food for societies that relied on hunting. Disruptions in climate would have
greatly reduced their means of sustenance. In fact, climate changes may have played a key role in the transition from huntergatherer societies to farming societies. Moore points to the coincidence of the end of the Ice Age with the rise of
agriculture and domestication about 10,000 years ago. As a result, populations that grew food could grow larger and larger
without being constrained by a limited supply of wildlife. According to Moore's book, there was little population growth in Europe
during the late first millennium A.D. Mountain passes restricted trade and movement, and many settlements were abandoned.
When the warmer 11th century came, towns grew and trade flourished. Marshes dried up to yield good farmland. Human life
expectancy in England reached 48 by the year 1276. In Greenland, settlers even grew corn — it was truly a "green land." This trend of
warmth reversed itself starting around 1300, ushering in a Mini-Ice Age. Glaciers in North America expanded. The once-flourishing
civilization in Greenland was abandoned. Europe experienced crop failures due to a shortened growing season. The coldness
generated storms and turned good land into bogs and marshes. Moore believes that this cooling period even
contributed to the Black Death plague. "The unpleasant weather is likely to have confined people to their homes where
they were more likely to be exposed to the fleas that carried the disease," he says. "In addition, the inclement weather may have
induced rats to take shelter in buildings, exposing their inhabitants to the bacillus." As a result, life expectancy in Britain plummeted
to 38 by the late 14th century. He documents similar historical trends in Asia. Human civilization prospered during
periods of warm weather in history and faced hardships and setbacks during cold periods. Says
Moore, "During the best of times, human populations have gone up rapidly, new techniques and practices have developed, and
building and art have flourished." Although the Industrial Revolution has reduced the dependence of human activity upon the
climate, warmer weather still makes a difference today. Despite all the benefits, many scientists still claim global
warming is a problem. Some of their concerns may be valid, such as the possible flooding of small islands. The question is, how can
we weigh the gains against the losses? How should global warming be judged when it could be both advantageous and
disadvantageous for people? Here is where the realm of science ends. Science can tell us the bare facts about what
will happen as a result of natural, physical processes. However, it cannot tell us how people will
or should act in response to these processes. According to Thomas Gale Moore in an interview, global
warming is not so much a scientific issue as an economic issue. People are fully capable of
adjusting to new conditions — just as they have done for thousands of years. A farmer
who finds that his crops can no longer grow under the new climate, for instance, could either move south or find a more suitable
crop. The result of human adaptability can be seen today in the fact that people today can live in both extreme heat and extreme cold
due to good insulation and air conditioning. "That's the interesting thing about human beings," says Moore. If it turns out to be true,
global warming may change the world in many ways. But as long as people are capable of acting and
adjusting, they can compensate for the negative effects of warming while enjoying
its positive fruits. Moore agrees: "There's no reason to think that warm weather is bad."
Greenland Econ
Warming key to Greenland econ
Ernst & Young’s 13 (Ernst & Young’s is a multinational professional services firm headquartered in London. “Arctic oil and gas”)
http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/Arctic_oil_and_gas/$FILE/Arctic_oil_and_gas.pdf
Sparsely populated Greenland is in some ways an oddity. ¶ Geographically, it is part of the North American continent, but ¶ geopolitically, it is
part of Europe. Nationally, Greenland is part ¶ of Denmark, but is a self-governing colony following 300 years ¶ of Danish rule.
The
Government of Greenland encourages oil ¶ development because it is keen to find another source of
income ¶ outside of fishing and wants to reduce its reliance on subsidies ¶ from Denmark. A fully
fledged oil industry could lead to full ¶ independence from Denmark, as well as economic
development.¶ Oil exploration in Greenland dates back to the late 1970s, but ¶ six test drillings in
1976, 1977 and 1990 failed to prove the ¶ potential for profitable exploitation, and the high cost of
accessing ¶ reserves in waters and land that are icebound for most of the year ¶ deterred investors. But
the potential for profitable exploitation ¶ changed in the summer of 2010 when British independent
oil ¶ company Cairn Energy discovered hydrocarbons in Greenland for ¶ the first time. Following the Cairn
discovery, in November 2010, ¶ Greenland awarded its first offshore oil and gas exploration licenses¶ to oil companies, opening up this Arctic
frontier to future oil and ¶ gas production. While the Greenlandic Government welcomed ¶ the Cairn discovery and the results of its first
licensing round, ¶ Greenpeace, the international environmental group, embarked ¶ upon an aggressive campaign to stop any more exploration
in the ¶ area dubbed “Iceberg Alley.”¶ 7¶ Cairn has interests in eight offshore areas spanning more than ¶ 85,000 square kilometers and had
budgeted US$1 billion for its ¶ eight-well drilling campaign spread over 2010–11. But drilling ¶ results have been disappointing, with some
hydrocarbon “shows” ¶ across multiple basins, but no commercial discoveries. Cairn is ¶ evaluating its next steps, while other existing acreageholders, ¶ Shell and Statoil, are expected to ramp up their exploration activity ¶ in 2012–13. Statoil notably bought into Cairn’s Pitu license in
late ¶ 2011. While
disappointed with the Cairn results, the Government ¶ has already planned a second
licensing round. In 2013, blocks will ¶ be offered in the Greenland Sea and offshore northeast
Greenland.
Canada Econ
Warming key to Canada econ
Ernst & Young’s 13 (Ernst & Young’s is a multinational professional services firm headquartered in London. “Arctic oil and gas”)
http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/Arctic_oil_and_gas/$FILE/Arctic_oil_and_gas.pdf
Canadian geologists long believed that the Arctic north had ¶ significant potential for petroleum
discoveries. In 1967, a ¶ partnership between government and industry resulted in the ¶ formation of Panarctic Oils Ltd., and in the 1970s
and early 1980s, ¶ the Canadian government invested in Arctic oil and gas exploration. ¶ Important discoveries were
made in the Mackenzie Delta region, ¶ the Beaufort Sea Basin and in the Arctic islands. Exploration ¶ drilling in Canada’s Arctic
offshore began in 1972, and since then, ¶ approximately 90 wells have been drilled in the Beaufort
Sea. In ¶ addition, 34 offshore wells have been drilled in Nunavut’s High ¶ Arctic Islands, and another
three wells have been drilled in the ¶ Eastern Arctic offshore. Most of this activity occurred in the
1970s ¶ and 1980s when a combination of increases in fuel prices and ¶ federal incentives made the
Arctic an attractive place for companies ¶ to invest in exploration.5¶ Changes in market conditions for oil and gas, the
end of ¶ government exploration incentives and the absence of ¶ infrastructure to ship oil and gas to markets, resulted in the ¶ withdrawal of
companies from exploration drilling in the Arctic ¶ offshore during the 1990s. Since 1991, when the National Energy ¶ Board (NEB) took over the
regulation of oil and gas exploration ¶ and production activities in this area, the only offshore well that ¶ has been drilled in Canada’s Arctic was
the Devon Paktoa C-60 ¶ exploration well. It was drilled in the Beaufort Sea during the winter ¶ of 2005–06 and was abandoned in March 2006.¶
Exploration interest in the Canadian Arctic offshore has increased ¶ in recent years. Six significant discovery licenses were issued in ¶ 2007 and
2008 to three companies exploring in the Beaufort ¶ Sea, and there has also been an increase in the number of active ¶ exploration licenses
issued in the Mackenzie Delta-Beaufort Sea ¶ region. However, the NEB noted in its December 2011 report, there ¶ is currently no offshore
drilling in Canada’s Arctic, nor are there ¶ applications for drilling before the board, although a number of ¶ companies hold exploration licenses
for areas in the Beaufort Sea.6¶ Following a regulatory update on oil and gas drilling regulation ¶ in the Canadian part of the Arctic Beaufort Sea,
industry ¶ heavyweights Chevron and Statoil have joined forces to ¶ explore leases in the area this year. Chevron, previously the ¶ sole
leaseholder, has farmed out a 40% stake to Statoil for an ¶ undisclosed amount but will remain the operator. The companies ¶ plan to launch a
3D seismic program for a 2,060-square-kilometer ¶ area on the back of strong confidence in significant resources being ¶ buried under Canada’s
Arctic ice and recent clarification on drilling ¶ safety regulation in the region.
Russian Econ
Warming key to Russian econ
Ernst & Young’s 13 (Ernst & Young’s is a multinational professional services firm headquartered in London. “Arctic oil and gas”)
http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/Arctic_oil_and_gas/$FILE/Arctic_oil_and_gas.pdf
Russian Arctic opportunities may in fact be the big prize. Over ¶ the last few years, Russia has intensified the
development of the ¶ vast hydrocarbon resources of its continental shelf, through state ¶ incentives aimed at
stimulating offshore oil and gas production. The ¶ area of Russia’s shelf and continental slope totals 6.2 million square ¶ kilometers, with the
vast majority in the Arctic area. The
¶
defined ¶ area of the continental shelf may be increased as Russia prepares
an application to extend its borders over 1.2 million square ¶ kilometers of Arctic waters, an application
expected to be finalized ¶ by the end of 2013. ¶ The Government of Russia is also completing development of the ¶ state program on
exploration and development of mineral resources ¶ of the Arctic continental shelf for 2012–30. Intensifying geological/¶ exploration activity is
one of the program’s main priorities, to be ¶ supported primarily by investments from private Russian oil and ¶ gas companies. ¶
Twenty
major oil and gas provinces and basins have been ¶ discovered on the Russian shelf, 10 of which have proved¶
oil and gas reserves. The largest Arctic sedimentary basins are the ¶ East Barents, South Kara, Laptev, East Siberian and Chukchi basins. ¶ The
majority of local resources (around 94% of the total) have been ¶ found in the western part, while the hydrocarbon potential of the ¶ eastern
part, along the slope and in the deep Arctic basin, is mostly ¶ regarded as inferred or contingent.¶ Gazprom
and Rosneft are
currently the only companies allowed ¶ to receive new licenses to explore Russia’s continental shelf.
The ¶ two companies hold the majority of licenses (29 for Rosneft and ¶ 16 for Gazprom), with the licenses mainly located in the Okhotsk, ¶ Kara
and Barents seas. However, according to Russia’s Arctic ¶ shelf development program, more companies may gain the right ¶ to explore and
produce oil and gas in the offshore strip, including ¶ some smaller, private companies or subsidiaries of state-controlled ¶ companies. A
number of Russian private companies are interested ¶ in participating in the Arctic shelf and are
lobbying for liberalization ¶ of access to shelf projects. Among them, LUKOIL has proposed the ¶ concept of a National
Company, which might cover many private ¶ companies and grant such companies the right to participate ¶ in shelf projects. Currently Russian
authorities are considering ¶ changes in the legislation on foreign investments in strategic ¶ sectors, including the oil and gas industry, to lighten
procedures for ¶ foreign companies to participate in development of such projects. ¶ Gazprom’s proposed mega-LNG project in the Russian
Arctic, ¶ the Shtokman development, to be developed jointly with Statoil ¶ and Total SA, faces increasing uncertainty. With cost estimates ¶
rising sharply and the expected market for much of the LNG — ¶ NorthAmerica — effectively evaporating with the shale boom, ¶ Gazprom and
its partners are “rethinking” the project. Statoil has ¶ since withdrawn from the Shtokman project, choosing not to renew ¶ its participation
when the original agreement expired in June 2012. ¶ As a result, Gazprom has postponed any final investment decision ¶ until 2014. Notably, in
the middle of December 2012 the company ¶ announced it would continue developing the project.¶ The recent agreement between Rosneft
and ExxonMobil for ¶ joint offshore development in the Kara and Black seas, signed in ¶ August 2011, is a significant new step in exploring and
producing ¶ hydrocarbons on the Russian shelf. This deal demonstrates that ¶ both domestic and international companies are interested in ¶
cooperating in this area. The total investment required in the ¶ project is estimated at US$500 billion. Rosneft would control a ¶ 67% stake in
the joint venture, while ExxonMobil would control ¶ the rest. Similar JVs are in place with Eni, to focus on Barents Sea ¶ exploration, and with
Statoil, focusing on exploration in the Barents ¶ and Okhotsk seas.¶ Looking
forward to 2020, it is expected that Rosneft
and Gazprom ¶ will remain the main drivers in developing Russia’s continental ¶ shelf. According to our
estimates, based on information from ¶ public sources attributed to the Ministry of Natural Resources ¶ and Environment and the Ministry of
Energy, licenses to exploit ¶ subsurface resources in the Arctic and Far East seas will be split ¶ between these two companies in 2020, with
about 41 licenses ¶ belonging to Rosneft and 32 to Gazprom. The main targets ¶ for Rosneft are expected to be the Barents shelf (including its ¶
southeastern part, named the Pechora Sea) and Okhotsk seas¶ (31 licenses), while Gazprom is expected to concentrate on Kara ¶ Sea projects
(21 licenses).
Econ
Melting of see ice key to economic growth
Lefeber 8/24/2012 (Rene DOCTOR CHAIR IN INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL
LAW THE THE UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM Polar Warming: An Opportune
Inconveniencehttp://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2151241)
Polar warming offers unprecedented opportunities for mankind. The northern sea routes
will, at least for part of the year, become ice free and navigable (the North-west
Passage, the North- east Passage, and the Transatlantic Passage). These routes will be
shorter and safer than the traditional sea routes that are stricken by pirates,
terrorism and war. The surface of the North Pole Region that is suitable for
forestry and agriculture will increase as a result of thawing and drying up of
tundra. The presence of increased amounts of melting water will make the Polar Regions, at
least the North Pole Region, a suitable location for the establishment of industries
that make intensive use of water or hydropower. The exploitation of mineral
resources, which have so far not been exploited due to technical or economical
obstacles, may become possible and profitable in the foreseeable future. The
metamorphosis of the North Pole Region from an ice world into a water world will
make it accessible for harvesting of fish species, such as Arctic cod and Arctic char,
which live in relatively cold waters and are expected to migrate to northern waters
as the water temperature rises. Together with the increase of human activities, the number
of people taking up permanent or temporary residence in the Polar Regions is also likely to
increase
Oil
Warming solves for oil production
Ernst & Young’s 13 (Ernst & Young’s is a multinational professional services firm headquartered in London. “Arctic oil and gas”)
http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/Arctic_oil_and_gas/$FILE/Arctic_oil_and_gas.pdf
The region above the Arctic Circle accounts ¶ for only about 6% of the Earth’s surface ¶ area, but it
could account for as much ¶ as 20% of the world’s undiscovered but ¶ recoverable oil and natural gas
resources. ¶ The existence of hydrocarbon resources in ¶ the Arctic has been known for decades, but ¶ only in recent years has
the opening to¶ full-scale resource development and ¶ navigation — such as the fabled Northwest ¶
Passage that would connect the Atlantic ¶ and Pacific Oceans, or the Northern ¶ Sea Route that will
connect Europe and ¶ western Russia with eastern Russia and ¶ Asian markets — become technically
and ¶ economically feasible.¶ Only about one-third of the Arctic is ¶ covered by land; another third consists ¶ ofthe offshore
continental shelf, with ¶ waters generally less than 500 meters ¶ deep and the remaining third comprises ¶ ocean waters, typically deeper than
meters. Much (if not most) of the ¶ Arctic waters are currently ice-covered for ¶ most of the year.
However, the polar ice ¶ cap has been noticeably receding in recent ¶ years, quite possibly as a
consequence of ¶ global climate change.¶ The Arctic region contains portions of eight ¶ countries — Canada,
¶ 500
Denmark/Greenland, ¶ Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden ¶ and the United States. Finland and Sweden ¶ do not border on the Arctic
Ocean and ¶ are the only Arctic countries without ¶ jurisdictional claims in the Arctic Ocean ¶ and adjacent seas.¶
Large oil and natural
gas fields are ¶ particularly important in reducing the cost ¶ to develop Arctic resources because they ¶
help pay for the infrastructure required ¶ for smaller fields. Large Arctic oil and ¶ natural gas discoveries began in Russia
in ¶ 1962, with the discovery of the Tazovskoye ¶ Field, followed in 1967 with the discovery ¶ of the US Alaskan Prudhoe Bay Field. ¶
Approximately 61 large oil and natural gas ¶ fields have been discovered so far within ¶ the Arctic
Circle — 43 are in Russia, 11 in ¶ Canada, 6 in Alaska and 1 in Norway.1¶ In 2008, the United States Geological ¶ Survey (USGS) released the
first-ever ¶ wide-ranging assessment of Arctic oil and ¶ gas resources, estimating the region’s ¶ undiscovered and technically recoverable ¶
conventional oil and natural gas resources. ¶ Of the 33 Arctic sedimentary “provinces” ¶ that the USGS evaluated, 25 were found ¶ to have a
greater than 10% probability ¶ of having oil or gas deposits larger than ¶ 50 million barrels of oil equivalent. ¶ The
USGS assessment
concluded that ¶ approximately 90 billion barrels of oil, ¶ 1,669 trillion cubic feet of gas, and ¶ 44billion
barrels of natural gas liquids ¶ (NGLs) may remain to be found in the ¶ Arctic. Of the total 412 billion barrels of ¶
oil equivalent (boe), approximately 84% ¶ is expected to be found offshore, and ¶ abouttwo-thirds (67%) of the total was ¶ natural gas.2,3
Ice Age
Ice age coming now – thanks, solar cycles.
Watts 7/15 – meteorologist president of IntelliWeather Inc., editor of Watts Up With That, prominent climate denial blog,
AMS seal holder, college dropout  (Anthony, “Newsbytes: Sun’s Bizarre Activity May Trigger Another Little Ice Age (Or Not)”,
7/15/13; < http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/15/newsbytes-suns-bizarre-activity-may-trigger-another-little-ice-age-ornot/>)//Beddow
From the GWPF and Dr. Benny Peiser “Weakest Solar Cycle In Almost 200 Years” The sun is acting bizarrely and
scientists have no idea why. Solar activity is in gradual decline, a change from the norm which in
the past triggered a 300-year-long mini ice age. We are supposed to be at a peak of activity, at solar
maximum. The current situation, however, is outside the norm and the number of sunspots seems in steady decline.
The sun was undergoing “bizarre behaviour” said Dr Craig DeForest of the society. “It is the smallest solar maximum we have seen in
100 years,” said Dr David Hathaway of Nasa. –Dick Ahlstrom, The Irish Times, 12 July 2013 The fall-off in sunspot
activity still has the potential to affect our weather for the worse, Dr Elliott said. “It all points to
perhaps another little ice age,” he said. “It seems likely we are going to enter a period of very
low solar activity and could mean we are in for very cold winters.” And while the researchers in the US said
the data showed a decline in activity, they had no way to predict what that might mean for the future. –Dick Ahlstrom, The Irish
Times, 12 July 2013 “We’re in a new age of solar physics,” says David Hathaway of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in
Huntsville, Alabama, who analysed the same data and came to the same conclusion. “We don’t know why the Gleissberg cycle takes
place but understanding it is now a focus.” As for when the next Maunder minimum may happen, DeToma will not even hazard a
guess. “We still do not know how or why the Maunder minimum started, so we cannot predict the next one.” –Stuart Clark, New
Scientist, 12 July 2013
CO2 emissions key to avert ice age.
Jones 4/23 – engineer, consultant, and contributing editor of Perihelion (Eric M, “IS Global Warming Vital to Human
Survival”, 4/23/13; < http://newsblaze.com/story/20130423133511mcco.nb/topstory.html>)//Beddow
The Earth has been warming for a very long time. We live in the Holocene Interglacial Epoch.
Virtually all human civilization from about 11,550 years ago took place in it. There is
every reason to believe that we will return to kilometer-thick glaciers sometime in the
future. All it takes is for the polar winter to get a minute longer year-by-year. You wouldn't even notice. Whether or not human
civilization is responsible for global warming is a widespread popular argument. Humans are certainly responsible for a part, and
perhaps most of this temperature rise, but there many reasons to take a less rabid view: 1) Science is not a matter of getting a showof-hands or signing petitions. Really it isn't. Honest! I would guess that most scientists - if faced with a call for a show-of-hands at a
conference - wouldn't comply. 2) In the words of Quantum Physicist Dr. David Deutsch1, "Regardless of which side you are on, it is
too late to prevent a global-warming disaster if there is to be one. In fact, it was too late to stop the global-warming disaster back in
the 1970's when the best scientific theory said that atmospheric particulate pollution was going to cause
a new ice age that
would destroy industrial civilization and kill millions. We can ease the current problem somewhat,
but we certainly can't prevent it." 3) Not long after the Pilgrims landed in the New World in 1620, one could skate across New York
harbor on the winter ice. The Earth is now not as much warmer-than-average, as it was then colder-than-average. This should give
one pause. 4) Having a First-World baby is a Jolly-Green-Giant carbon footprint. Little has been said about this. A US baby is
responsible for adding one-million kilograms of CO2 to the environment over a lifetime. It does no good to halve the CO2 per person
and then double the population. Until environmentalists are interested in tackling First-World population growth (and they won't
ever be), they're just whistling past the graveyard. So don't talk to me about AGW if your first words aren't "We gotta control the
population...." You might have guessed that I am not likely to be seen marching in any "AGW Environmentalist" parades. But,
nevertheless, I think something big is going on. And at the risk of being exposed as wildly naive, I present to you some evidence that
at least should make you stop and think, and with which you should be familiar ... whichever side of the argument you are on.
Have you seen the Sun recently? It is now quieter than any time in the last century. Fewer
sunspots mean a cooler, less active Sun with a shorter solar-cycle period. Many people are concerned
over this "Solar Minimum."2 Solar Minimums such as the Oort Minimum 1010-1050; the Wolf Minimum; 1280-1350; the Spörer
Minimum 1460-1550; the Maunder Minimum 1645-1715; and the Dalton Minimum 1790-1820 were all accompanied by
global cooling and crop failures, bad weather, mass migrations, wars, starvation
and social unrest. (Many historians attribute the witch burning hysteria of the middle ages partly to the "Little Ice Age,"
starting with the Wolf minimum and continuing until the end of the Maunder Minimum). And were there Solar Maximums3, too?
Yes, indeed. The Medieval warm spell 1100-1250 was one; but there was not another of any real importance until 1950 and lasting
until today. Milankovitch4 calculated the various components of Solar-system celestial mechanics to definitively show what caused
ice ages. Others have corroborated his work and have shown the same thing. This is viewed as settled science, because it is only
physics and math.
All the calculations point to a coming ice age, also depending
somewhat on how humans influence the climate. But it is still a complicated problem due to many
overlapping influences; volcanoes being one, humans being another. Could people screw up the atmosphere
sufficiently to delay the onset of the next ice-age? Maybe...but nobody knows. Some years ago I stumbled across a
stunning paper by Penn and Livingston that declared: "Sunspots may disappear by 2015." This is a bold assertion and if true, a very
bad thing for us humans. These two very soft-spoken NASA scientists determined this simply by recording the data for 20 years that
showed the magnet fields associated with sunspots was declining by 50 Gauss per year (the equivalent of a really-really-really
gigantic refrigerator magnet).
Ag
Warming hugely boosts agricultural yield.
Moore 08 - Thomas Gale Moore is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Between 1985 and 1989 he
was a member of President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers (Thomas Gale, “Global Warming: A Balance Sheet”, 2008; <
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/GlobalWarmingABalanceSheet.html>)//Beddow
In many parts of the world, warmer weather should mean longer growing seasons. If the world
were to warm, the hotter climate would enhance evaporation from the seas and, in all
probability, lead to more precipitation worldwide. Moreover, the enrichment of the atmosphere
with CO2 would fertilize plants, making for more vigorous growth. The IPCC assessment of warming is
that “a few degrees of projected warming will lead to general increases in temperate crop yields,
with some regional variation” (IPCC 2001, p. 32). Bjørn Lomborg, a Danish environmentalist and statistician, reported
that with moderate adaptation by farmers, warming would boost cereal production in richer
countries by 4–14 percent, while cutting them in poorer countries by 6–7 percent (2001, p. 288). The U.S. Department of
Agriculture, in a cautious report, reviewed the likely influence of global warming and concluded that the
overall effect on world food production would be slightly positive and that, therefore,
agricultural prices would probably decrease (Kane et al. 1991).
Elevated CO2 levels on plants ?
Madan et al. 12 (P. Madan Division of Plant Physiology, Indian Agricultural Research Institute “Effect of elevated CO2 and High
Temperature on Seed-Set and Grain Quality of Rice”, Journal of Experimental Botany, Feb 20, 2012
patterninghttp://jxb.oxfordjournals.org.proxy.lib.umich.edu/content/63/10/3843.full.pdf+html)
The effects of [CO2¶ ] on biomass (increased by 50%) and¶ seed yield (increased by 24% to 30%) observed in this study¶
are similar to those of other studies in controlled environments (Baker, 2004; Ainsworth, 2008). Recent FACE (Free¶ Air CO2¶ Enrichment)
studies under near-field conditions¶ have, however, demonstrated the yield increase in response¶ to
elevated CO2 to be less than that obtained under¶ enclosure studies (Long et al., 2006; Ainsworth, 2008; Long¶ and Ort, 2010).¶ Our first
hypothesis was that no interaction would be¶ found between tissue temperature and [CO2] on seed-set,¶ and the results support this. There
appears to be a very¶ small effect of [CO2] on seed-set in IR64, but the interaction¶ between temperature and [CO2] was not significant.
Thus,¶ a small increase in tissue temperature can lead to a large¶ decline in seed-set and yield. Tissue
temperature increases¶ due to a decrease in transpiration cooling at higher [CO2¶ ]¶ and genetic variation for this trait exists (Weerakoon et
al.,¶ 2008) and is influenced by vapour pressure deficit¶ (Gholipoor et al., 2010). It has
also been hypothesized that¶ [CO2]
would increase spikelet numbers at all temperatures,¶ which would result in greater seed numbers.
Although¶ [CO2] increased yield potential (number of spikelets) at¶ 29 C, this response was not
observed at 35 C or 38 C.¶ Moreover, an increase in the total number of spikelets on¶ the main tiller
panicle of the hybrid was observed which¶ could indicate a possible developmental mechanism in¶
response to increasing temperature. In any case, greater growth rates or yield potentials at higher [CO2] and also¶ high
temperatures, particularly in the case of the hybrid,¶ cannot compensate for the direct effects of high temperature¶ at anthesis on spikelet
fertility and these episodes will¶ remain a major constraint in the future as well as under¶ current climates (Wheeler et al., 1996; Wassmann et
al., 2009).¶ The
observed increase in individual kernel weight with¶ increasing temperature is associated
with greater spikelet¶ sterility and hence compensation for a smaller sink size.
Desertification
Increased carbon emissions are key to global greening.
Taylor 7/12 – managing editor of Environment and Climate News, senior fellow at the Heartland Institute, environmentalist
JD from Syracuse University (James M., “Global Warming? No, Satellites Show Carbon Dioxide is Causing ‘Global Greening’”,
7/12/13; <news.heartland.org/editorial/2013/07/12/global-warming-no-satellites-show-carbon-dioxide-causing-globalgreening)//Beddow
Rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are bolstering plant life throughout the world,
environmental scientists report in a newly published peer-reviewed study. The findings, published in Geophysical Research Letters,
are gleaned from satellite measurements of global plant life, and contradict assertions by activists that global warming is causing
deserts to expand, along with devastating droughts. A team of scientists led by environmental physicist Randall Donohue, a research
scientist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Australia, analyzed satellite data from 1982
through 2010. The scientists documented a carbon dioxide “fertilization effect” that has caused a
gradual greening of the Earth, and particularly the Earth’s arid regions, since 1982. The satellite data
showed rising carbon dioxide levels caused a remarkable 11 percent increase in foliage in arid
regions since 1982, versus what would be the case if atmospheric carbon dioxide levels had
remained at 1982 levels. “Lots of papers have shown an average increase in vegetation across the globe, and there is a lot of
speculation about what’s causing that,” said Donohue in a press release accompanying the study. “Up until this point, they’ve linked
the greening to fairly obvious climatic variables, such as a rise in temperature where it is normally cold or a rise in rainfall where it is
normally dry. Lots of those papers speculated about the CO2 effect, but it has been very difficult to prove.” The study noted that
foliage in warm, wet regions such as tropical rainforests are near their maximum capacity. In warm, arid regions there is
room for greater increases in foliage and rising carbon dioxide levels are inducing more
prevalent plant growth. Carbon dioxide acts as aerial fertilizer and also helps plants thrive under
arid conditions. Although global precipitation has increased during the past century as the Earth has warmed, elevated carbon
dioxide levels are assisting plant life in warm, dry regions independent of – and in addition to – increases in global precipitation.
“The effect of higher carbon dioxide levels on plant function is an important process that needs greater consideration,” said
Donohue. “Even if nothing else in the climate changes as global CO2 levels rise, we will still see significant environmental changes
because of the CO2 fertilization effect.” Donohue focused special attention on Australia in an additional press release. Although
global drought is becoming less frequent and less severe as the Earth modestly warms, activists claim global warming is causing
harmful drought in Australia. “In Australia, our native vegetation is superbly adapted to surviving in arid environments and it
consequently uses water every efficiently,” said Donohue. “Australian vegetation seems quite sensitive to CO2 fertilization.” “On the
face of it, elevated CO2 boosting the foliage in dry country is good news and could assist forestry and agriculture in such areas,”
Donohue reported, while adding that scientists should still monitor secondary effects. The satellite data show plant life in the
United States has especially benefited from rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and
gradually warming temperatures. Satellite data show foliage has increased in the vast majority of the United States since
1982, with the western U.S. benefiting the most. Indeed, many western regions experienced a greater than 30 percent increase in
foliage since 1982. Other regions showing particularly strong increases in foliage include the Sahel
region of Africa, the Horn of Africa, southern Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and nearly all of
Europe.
That stops desertification.
Lehman 7/9 – writer for Headlines and Global News, citing a study based on CSIRO in collaboration with Australian
National University (Sam, “Rising Carbon Dioxide Levels Causing Desert ‘Greening’”, 7/9/13;
<http://www.hngn.com/articles/7242/20130709/rising-carbon-dioxide-levels-causing-desert-greening.htm>)//Beddow
Rise in the level of carbon dioxide in the air is causing desert "greening" and has increased
foliage cover by 11 percent. Up until now the negative aspects of rising levels of carbon dioxide have been highlighted in
almost all studies conducted on this matter. A new study, based on satellite observations, CSIRO, in collaboration with the
Australian National University (ANU) reported that the rising levels of carbon dioxide have caused deserts
to
start greening and increased foliage cover by 11 percent from 1982-2010 across parts of the arid
areas studied in Australia, North America, the Middle East and Africa." In Australia, our native
vegetation is superbly adapted to surviving in arid environments and it consequently uses water
very efficiently," CSIRO research scientist, Dr Randall Donohue, said in a press statement. "Australian vegetation seems
quite sensitive to CO2 fertilization." While scientists have speculated that carbon dioxide may be
causing such changes, this is the first study that confirmed the effects. For the study, researchers used a
mathematical modeling together with satellite data adjusted to take out the observed effects of other influences such as rainfall, air
temperature, the amount of light and land-use changes. Elevated carbon dioxide levels affect the
photosynthesis process of a leaf causing it to consume less water to convert
sunlight into sugar. This leads to plants in arid environments increasing their
number of leaves. This increase in the number of leaves can be easily detected by satellites since foliage cover is less in
arid areas when compared to wet locations. "On the face of it, elevated CO2 boosting the foliage in dry country is
good news and could assist forestry and agriculture in such areas; however there will be secondary effects
that are likely to influence water availability, the carbon cycle, fire regimes and biodiversity, for example," Dr Donohue concluded.
"Ongoing research is required if we are to fully comprehend the potential extent and severity of such secondary effects." The findings
of the study were published in the journal US Geophysical Research Letters.
Desertification destroys biodiversity.
Senanayake 12 – Chairman of Rainforest Rescue International, Senior Scientist at Counterpart International, Project
Director at Worldview Myanmar Chairman (Ranil, “Desertification and Biodiversity”, 3/25/12; <
http://groundviews.org/2012/03/25/desertification-and-biodiversity/>)//Beddow
The link between land degradation and desertification has been made abundantly clear in
studies conducted in Africa and Australia. A loss of natural vegetation, a loss in soil organic
matter and a loss of soil stability contribute greatly to the process. These processes are often
interlinked. Vegetation encourages soil stability by providing cover, the binding action of roots,
providing root exudates and by the contribution of its biomass to the soil. A loss of vegetation
results in a corresponding loss of soil organic matter and stability. Soil organic matter and
soil stability are often linked. A soil that becomes depauperate in its content of organic matter looses the glue that holds soil particles
together and becomes easily erodible. The more a soil erodes the more difficult it becomes for the soil microorganisms to glue the
particles together. The process is analogous to a spider’s web in the wind. A whole web can withstand the pressure. If one of the
threads that anchor it is broken the spider can repair it, but if the rate of damage is slowly increased, there will come a time when the
spider cannot repair the damage and the web will be destroyed by the wind. Every environment has a threshold
beyond which damage cannot be repaired by the natural system. In arid and semi
arid environments this threshold is very low. This does not mean that these environments are unusable.
Merely that management has to be sensitive to these constraints. The lessons of mismanagement are thick about us. The forests
of Lebanon and the forests of central China have been replaced by deserts as a consequence of
poor management. In other places, humanity has used such lands for time immemorial and still
does today. It means that good land management is critical in addressing arid and semi arid lands. Studies of arid and semi-arid
ecosystems indicate that the original ecosystems are uniquely adapted to the harsh climate, when they
are disturbed or destroyed, the ecosystem moves towards desertification. These ecosystems
are rich in biodiversity and have distinctive associations of plants and animals
when stable. Biodiversity, it must be noted is the measure of the variability of
living organisms at any spatio-temporal point. It does not mean wild, endemic, rare or even native,
merely the measure of variability. Thus a certain suite of species will represent the biodiversity of a wild area in a given environment,
while a different suite of species will represent a human managed area in the same environment. Degradation is usually
accompanied by the loss of biodiversity in either environment. Therefore, biodiversity is a good
indicator of land degradation. As land degradation and desertification are closely linked,
biodiversity can also serve as a good indicator of desertification.